Steven's Sacrifice
by The Urban Spaceman
Summary: Twenty years after the battle for the Crucible, Commander Shepard reaches out to a man he once knew and respected. Space, it turns out, is a vast and lonely place, and even though he's sacrificed his own life to control the Reaper threat, Shepard is still only human after all.
1. Phoenix

_Author's Note: Don't panic, regular readers! This story is not replacing my bi-weekly updates of my other fictions. This short story is a piece for a Control-Ending contest over at Aria's Afterlife Forums (if you're a Mass Effect fan and not already posting over there, you should check it out) on fanfiction dot net. I'll be updating this story daily, yes, __**daily!**_ _until it's concluded. Which I suspect will be weekend, or Monday at the latest. Hope you enjoy it._

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Steven's Sacrifice

_Chapter 1_

_Phoenix_

How many ships could say they'd been commanded by the man who'd saved the galaxy?

Only two, as far as Admiral Steven Hackett knew, and the bones of one of those ships now littered the surface of Alchera, final resting place of the crew of the Normandy SR-1 who hadn't survived the prototype's destruction at the hands of the Collectors.

The second ship to bear the name _Normandy_ had done better than her predecessor. She'd travelled to the lethal galactic core, gone up against the Collectors with guns blazing and engines screaming, and come out of it in one piece. She'd been in the thick of the action during the battle for the Crucible, running rings around Reapers that out-gunned her by a factor of hundreds. She'd been a symbol of hope for military personnel and civilians alike. Indeed, she'd been just as famous as the man who'd commanded her. She wasn't just a ship; she was Shepard's ship.

So, of course, Admiral Hackett felt like an interloper as he stepped up to the captain's position at the aft of the _Normandy's_ CIC. Detecting his presence, the ship automatically brought up a map of the region, a beautiful display of swirling lights which indicated nearby star systems and their corresponding mass relays.

"Awaiting your orders, Admiral," said EDI, her voice coming in loud and clear over the _Normandy's_ speakers.

"How does it feel to be linked up to the _Normandy_ again, EDI?" Hackett asked her.

"I believe the correct analogy is 'like coming home,' Admiral."

He smiled. Yes. It was _very_ much a homecoming for the ship's artificial intelligence.

"Joker, how's everything looking from the cockpit?" Hackett enquired.

When the pilot replied, it was with his unique style of light-hearted irreverence.

"I can't believe I ever thought this seat was comfortable. Remind me to invent a time machine, then I can go back and tell my younger self to tell the Illusive Man to install one of those awesome poly-suria seats, like the one on the _Viking_."

"Jeff," EDI spoke up, a tone of eternal patience echoing in her synthetic voice, "even if you were able to travel through time, and survive the journey, and locate your younger self at the correct moment, he would not be able to relay such a suggestion to the Illusive Man as poly-suria had not been invented when the _Normandy_ SR-2 was constructed."

"I know, EDI." Joker sighed, and Hackett could imagine the pilot rolling his eyes at his AI counterpart. "It was a joke."

"Oh. I see. Ha ha ha."

Hackett shook his head, but he couldn't help the smile that played across his lips. "Some things never change. Joker, how is everything but the furniture?"

"Engines are in the green, Tantalus drive core is purring like a kitten, and we have a Go from flight control."

"Good. Take us out of the Earth's orbit on a heading to the Charon Relay."

"Our destination, Admiral?"

"Tuchanka."

"Ahh, Tuchanka. I haven't been there since the mother of all threshers took down a Reaper and almost ate the _Normandy_ in the process. Good times."

Hackett felt a gentle thrum as power surged through the _Normandy's_ conduits. You didn't get that _thrum_ on newer ships; their bulkheads were lined with a material designed to better insulate and regulate the power-flow.

_Thrum_.

That was the _Normandy_ breaking out of the Earth's orbit.

_Thrum_.

Joker just switched from atmospheric thrusters to the main drive core.

_Thrum_.

Sub-light engines activated. The _Normandy_ was now gliding through space like a dolphin through water, and to anybody watching from the planet's surface she would appear nothing more than a rapidly dwindling speck of light.

"I still can't believe they let us take her out of the San Francisco Ship Museum," Joker said.

"One of the perks of being Admiral of the Earth Military Fleet," Hackett chuckled.

"Admiral?" It was EDI, appearing in her holographic form beside the relay map. Hackett knew that when she appeared like this, it was a personal appearance, not broadcast over the comm system. "Should I ask one of the crew-members to fetch a seat for you, from the mess?"

"Oh, no, no need for anything like that," he said quickly. True, his bones ached a lot more these days than they used to, and there was a slight stoop to his shoulders that hadn't been there a few years ago, but he hadn't thought anybody had noticed his age creeping up on him; and he certainly hadn't thought the AI would notice it.

EDI disappeared, and Hackett glanced around to make sure none of the crew had overhead the exchange. He wasn't sensitive about his age; eighty-five was a lot younger than it had been before the time of life-enhancing medical treatment, and to date he hadn't needed a single hip replacement. But the crew needed a strong leader, and though he knew they wouldn't respect him any less if they learnt that time was finally catching up with him, he didn't want any special treatment because of it. He wasn't sick, he was just approaching his sell-by date.

There was a palpable tension in the air of the CIC, half excitement, half nervousness. Since being restored to her former glory and put on display in the SFS-Museum, the Normandy hadn't even so much as glimpsed open space. Of course, there had been critics and nay-sayers. _She'll never fly!_ they claimed. _And even if she flies, she'll never jump!_

Hackett knew better, and he had to give Cerberus their due; they'd built the SR-2 well. It would have been easy for them to have scrimped on cost, to replace certain materials with sub-standard counterparts. But they hadn't. They'd not only _matched_ the old ship, but _bettered_ her. The _Normandy's_ second incarnation was larger, faster, and more powerful. It also helped that Shepard's crew had modified and upgraded her in different ways, in preparation for her mission against the Collectors. Her Thanix cannon packed a powerful punch. Or at least it had, twenty years ago. He didn't know whether the cannon would still work, and he wasn't eager to try.

"Approaching the Charon Relay," said Joker. "Might wanna hold on to something steady, Admiral. The old girl hasn't seen a mass relay in two decades; I've got a feeling she's getting excited."

_Thrum._

Hackett decided to take Joker's advice, and placed one of his hands firmly on the railing. The tension in the air rose, the crew speaking in eager tones, their eyes shining with the reflected light of the CIC computers. Most of these men and women hadn't served on a stealth-ship before. Now that the Reapers were no longer a threat, and galactic peace had been achieved, there was no need for stealth-ships. The _Normandy_ was the last of her kind; all of her sisters had been destroyed during the battle for the Crucible, twenty years past. Of course, the military still kept the old schematics in their database, just in case galactic peace wasn't as permanent as everyone hoped. You never knew when the designs for an advanced stealth frigate might come in handy.

Most of the crew were _Normandy_ virgins, but a select few had manned their stations before. Finding survivors from those times hadn't been easy. Only two of the bridge crew had served aboard the SR-1, and with Adams in engineering and Dr Chakwas—the old battle-axe still wading her way through injured soldiers—manning the medbay, that brought the total to four. The cook and the communications officer were ex-Cerberus, and had served during the SR-2's mission against the collectors. Samantha Traynor, now a Commander herself, was acting as the XO for this 'mission,' and, of course, Joker was here, along with EDI. And that was it. Less than a dozen crewmembers who knew what it was to be part of the _Normandy._ To be a part of the legend.

_Thrum._

Hackett felt the ship shudder as it hit the relay and the FTL drive kicked in. He told himself that it was a shudder of excitement, that the _Normandy_ would not be felled by a simple FTL jump after everything she'd endured in her life. Another brief quiver and the ship did not let her crew down. As she sped forward through the cold depths of space, Hackett turned his gaze to one of the small observation windows, and saw the multi-hued aura that surrounded all vessels as they travelled faster than light encompassing the ship, a slip-stream nimbus of colours that danced across his vision.

_Thank you, old girl,_ he thought to the _Normandy_, patting the railing.

"This is the galaxy's number one pilot reporting from the cockpit," Joker said over the comm. "Just thought I'd let you know that at our current velocity and drift, we'll be at Tuchanka in under an hour."

"Adams here," said the chief engineer. "Drive core is operating within accepted tolerance, and I'm keeping a close eye on it, Admiral. It might take a couple of jumps for all the dust to clear out of the vents."

"Admiral," said EDI's disembodied voice, "I am pleased to report that the _Normandy's_ heat sinks have not lot storage capacity since the ship was last used, and I calculate we should be able to make all of our stops and return to Earth before we will need to discharge them."

"Good work, people," Hackett said. He purposely raised his voice so that those on the bridge could hear him too. "I never doubted the success of this mission, or the dedication of this crew. Those of you serving here for the first time will never have another chance like this." He smiled. "So whilst we have a little quiet time, you might want to take his opportunity to get the photographs out of the way. Pictures of you serving aboard the _Normandy_ will be something to show your grandkids."

"I have to say," Joker piped up, "it feels great to be back in this seat, all physical discomfort aside. I'd almost forgotten how smooth and fast the _Normandy_ is. It's been too long since we last danced."

"Try to keep dancing to a minimum until we return to Earth please, Joker. Now, I'm going to head up to the captain's quarters, and file some reports for HQ." The Alliance would want to know that the 'mission' was off to a good start. Of course, they probably already knew that by the fact that the _Normandy_ hadn't been scattered all over Sol upon her encounter with the Charon Relay. But they'd still want reports. They always did.

"Aye, sir. I'll contact you once we reach Tuchanka."

Hackett turned to step off the CIC deck, but when a thought occurred to him, he pressed the comm button once more.

"Joker, you are not, under any circumstances, to activate the ship's stealth system in an attempt to 'sneak up' on Tuchanka. I want the krogans to see us coming."

"Haha, I hadn't even considered it, Admiral," Joker offered lamely.

"I'm sure. EDI, make sure our pilot behaves."

"Of course, Admiral," EDI purred. "I will keep a very close eye on Jeff."

Finally satisfied there would be no surprises during the journey, Hackett left the CIC and stepped into the elevator. He didn't bother checking out the preparations in the observation lounge – the cook would be handling matters there, and everybody knew that too many cooks spoilt the broth. Instead, he went straight to the captain's quarters. All of Shepard's stuff was still here; the tiny model ships he'd collected on his travels, the aquarium that was eerily empty of fish because the museum curators hadn't trusted the Normandy staff with their care on this journey, even a framed photo of Liara on Shepard's desk.

This was all that was left of Shepard. The Alliance hadn't had a body to bury, in the wake of the Reaper withdrawal, so his personal effects had been kept here, where the saviour of the galaxy had lived and worked. For twenty years this room had been a shrine, a Mecca for those who wanted to give thanks to Shepard for all he'd sacrificed, but couldn't find any other way of doing it. For twenty years this room, this ship, had been the San Francisco Ship Museum's biggest tourist attraction, and they hadn't liked letting the the old girl back out into space. But nobody refused a request from the Admiral of the Fleet.

The room felt empty. Forlorn. The space cried out to be lived in and used for something more than hero-worship by daily groups of strangers, some of them too young to remember what it felt like to look up from Earth and see Reapers descending. And for the second time that day, Steven Hackett knew that he didn't belong here. He was a poor substitute for the man who had saved the galaxy. But sometimes a poor substitute was all you had to work with.


	2. Reunion

Steven's Sacrifice

_Chapter 2_

_Reunion_

The Citadel hung lifelessly in space against the backdrop of Earth. The planet, a blue and white swirling marble suspended in the velvet blackness of space, was at its closest proximity to the inert station; it wouldn't come this near again until it had completed its next orbit of the sun, in a year's time. On Earth itself, the annual Shepard Memorial Day would be just kicking off. Amateur star-gazers would be hauling their telescopes out and aiming them towards the Citadel; for many, it would be the closest they would ever come to seeing the place where decisions of galactic importance had once been made, and where their saviour had died.

Hackett had a better view than most. The _Normandy's_ observation deck was angled towards the Citadel, affording an excellent view of the station, and of the tiny ships which hovered around its closed arms. Those ships were filled with scientists and engineers of all races, but Hackett knew their actions were completely futile. For twenty years they'd been trying to open the Citadel up again, and they were no closer now than they had been ten years ago. It was sealed tightly and left to hang dead in space, an ancient and silent monolith, a relic of times past.

Laughter in the background brought his attention back to the room. The memorial celebrations hadn't officially begun, but all of the guests of honour had been provided with drinks upon their respective arrivals, and the last visitor was being escorted to the observation lounge by one of the crew.

Garrus had the attention of the room as he regaled them with some anecdote. He looked no different than he had twenty years ago, save for the fact that his scars had healed. Turians didn't appear any older on the outside as they aged—_lucky sods_—and Garrus was still young enough to be active in the turian military. Hackett envied him for that; it was a long time since he'd been able to command troops in the field, and he knew his body wasn't up to that particular task anymore.

"…so then Reena dodged the batarian's strike and performed a great sweeping roundhouse kick. Knocked her opponent flat on his back and won the match in under a minute."

"It's reassuring to know the next generation of turian soldiers has such an accomplished teacher," said Commander Sam Traynor.

"Hah!" Garrus chortled. "I doubt my daughter has a military career in mind, Commander. She thinks the military's archaic and boring. And I must admit, she has a point. There was a time when the young soldiers had a reason to undergo gruelling training regimes. Now, all most of them have to look forward to is years of ship-tours on pirate patrols. Don't get me wrong, being Head of Tactical Training at the Palaven Academy has its perks; sociable hours, great pay, my own desk… but every year the class sizes get smaller and smaller. I've tried telling the primarch that we need to keep recruitment up in case the rachni turn on us, or the krogan start grabbing planets that don't belong to them again—no offence, Wrex."

"None taken," the krogan leader rumbled.

"But I think twenty years of peace has started to soften my people. The geth are quiet, the rachni are downright congenial, and the krogan are behaving themselves. What's left of the batarians couldn't muster enough ships to worry even the most undefended of colonies, and apart from that minor incident with the vorcha six years ago, we haven't seen a proper military engagement since the Reapers turned tail and ran."

"You might have reason to complain about peace, Garrus," Tali spoke up. As always, she was wearing her air-tight suit and breathing mask. "But you won't be hearing any complaints from me. This time of peace is exactly what my people need to rebuild our civilisation on Rannoch."

"How are things going on your planet, Admiral Tali'Zorah?" Hackett asked her. And he got the impression that she grimaced under that mask.

"Heh. 'Admiral Tali'Zorah.' I still can't get used to hearing that. Who would have thought that I would one day be an admiral?"

"Oh please!" said Garrus. "We all saw it coming a mile away."

"It was pretty obvious, Tali," Kasumi agreed. The slender woman was keeping up her air of mystery; a dark blue hood was pulled forward over her head, obscuring most of her features. Her eyes, though, sparkled from the depths of the shadows, the result of some type of ocular implant designed to aid low-light vision. "In fact, I think it's rather disappointing you followed in your father's footsteps. Imagine how exciting your life would be if you'd become a thief instead. Or a pirate on the run from the law; now that would be romantic."

Tali shook her masked head. "You and your wild notions of adventure and romance, Kasumi. You know well enough that we quarians can't live our lives for ourselves. At least, not yet. Until my people have fully adapted to life on Rannoch, we still have to consider the needs of all quarians."

"I've been reviewing the data you sent me a couple of months ago," Dr. Chakwas spoke up. Her age-lined face now matched her silver hair, and her hands were becoming twisted by arthritis, but she still had a proud bearing, and a gleam of intelligence in her canny eyes. "Your people are making great progress. In seven or eight years you might be able to do away with your suits completely; at least while on your home planet."

"So, when are we going to see a little Tali Junior running around the galaxy?" Adams asked. His eyes glinted with unfeigned amusement at the thought of a miniature Tali'Zorah.

"Oh, I don't know. I'm so busy with leading my people that I haven't had time to meet anyone and negotiate a marriage. Besides, I'm not sure kids are for me."

"Rubbish, kids are for everyone!" Garrus huffed. "See for yourself."

Hackett stepped back as Garrus activated his omni-tool and the holographic image of two young turians appeared a few feet away. The boy, eldest of the two, was tall and gangly, his head-fringe just starting to lengthen as he approached his late teens. The girl was shorter, not as scrawny as her elder brother, and her head was lifted in a familiar tilt of confidence that she'd obviously picked up from her father.

"See?" Garrus told Tali. "I'm sure if I can manage to produce two amazing little people like this, it'll be a piece of Palaven peach pie for you."

Grunt stepped away from Wrex, and circled the holographs as he examined them closely.

"Huh," he said, "always wondered what turian kids would look like. They're a bit frail, aren't they? Krogan children are much studier when they hatch."

"How many kids do you have now, Wrex?" Commander Traynor asked the krogan leader.

"Twenty-seven." He scratched his scarred head with one large finger. "I think. To be honest, I stopped counting at twenty. I leave keeping track of the not-so-little-ones to Bakara. She likes that sort of family stuff."

"Only twenty-seven?" Kasumi said. "I thought you'd have dozens by now. Hundreds, even!"

"Bakara was quite ill, following her stay with the salarians," Wrex grumbled. His crest lowered into a frown. "She's not as fertile as she could be. Still, twenty-seven is a big improvement on pre–cure days. Sometimes I even wish I had less of the brats. My eldest, Mordin, just turned nineteen, but it feels like as soon as one kid leaves the nest, another comes along to sap up my time and energy again."

Before anybody could respond, the observation lounge door was opened and in stepped Miranda Lawson, dark hair flowing around her shoulders, eyes barely touched by crows-feet in their corners. Time had done nothing to diminish her flawless visage. In fact, she looked even more beautiful now than she had twenty years ago. Like the finest of wines, she had only improved with age.

"Sorry I'm late," she said, treating everybody in the room to a dazzling smile. "Another news interview that I couldn't get out of. You know how people get, this time of year."

There was a round of affirmative comments. Shepard-mania was a galaxy-wide phenomenon that spread rapidly each year around the date of Shepard's victory over the Reapers. The extranet would be full of exclusive interviews with anyone who'd been in the vicinity of Earth during the final battle, and anybody who'd ever so much as laid eyes on Shepard was hot property. This year would be even worse, with it being the twentieth anniversary, which was why Hackett was now doubly glad he'd arranged this little soirée for the group of Normandy veterans. It would give them the peace and quiet they needed, as well as the perfect chance to remember lost friends.

"Business going well, Miranda?" Kasumi asked, her voice all sweet honey. Hackett wasn't convinced she hadn't entirely given up her life of grand larceny.

"I heard you bought a moon," Adams added.

Miranda shrugged. "It's not a large moon. Nothing fancy. But it's enough for me."

"Sounds like Daddy's empire isn't doing too badly," Garrus said.

"If there's one good thing I can say about my father," Miranda agreed, "it's that he knew how to build a business. Too bad he was also a self-centred, murderous megalomaniac. But I can see I am interrupting a conversation. What was the topic before I got here?"

"Kids," Traynor said. "Garrus was showing us holos of his two, and Wrex was telling us how much of a handful his brood are. What about you, Miranda? Have you thought about having kids?"

One perfect eyebrow rose up.

"Are you kidding? Ruin _this_ body with _childbirth_? I think not."

"So what'll happen to the dynasty when you finally kick the bucket?" Garrus asked.

"I'll leave it to Oriana. Or set up a conglomerate." She glanced around the room, blue-grey eyes taking in everybody present. "Where's the rest of the group, anyway?"

"Joker's on his way down with some apologies," Hackett said.

"And you need wait for me no longer. Now the party can really get started." The observation room door opened again, and Joker appeared with EDI by his side. They walked arm-in-arm, but Hackett knew how much the pilot relied on his AI partner's strength. No cure had been devised for Vrolik Syndrome despite recent advances in medical technology… at least, no cure that could help Joker. It was possible to cure infants whilst they were still in-vivo, but that didn't help Jeff Moreau, and others like him who'd been living with this condition all of their lives.

There were a few grey hairs on Joker's head now, and a few in his beard, too. He laughed it off when it was pointed out and merely said that he'd been out in the sun which had lightened his hair, but there was no mistaking the look of pain which crossed his face whenever he had to walk too far. It was a miracle he'd survived this long, given the extent of his condition and the fact that his job wasn't exactly hazard-free, and Hackett knew _osteogenesis imperfecta_ was finally beginning to take its toll.

It wasn't fair. Joker was still a relatively young man, and were it not for his affliction, he would have had plenty of years of life left in him. Hackett wished it could be different. He wished that he could take on Joker's condition himself, and be the one to suffer from brittle bones, and painful movement. His body was already starting to slow; suffering from Vroliks to give Joker a pain-free life would have been a small price to pay. Unfortunately, life didn't work like that. Joker would live with his condition until it weakened him to the point of paralysis and then finally killed him. He would die much too young.

Nobody in the room showed any sign that they had picked up on Hackett's sombre mood. Everyone greeted Joker with smiles, and EDI deposited him in a chair beside the bar whilst she fetched him a drink. Her metallic body glinted in the light of the room, and Hackett was grateful she was here. Not only was she helping Joker get around the ship, but she was also handling half of the ship's functions remotely whilst the crew were relaxing. For centuries AIs had been feared and mistrusted, thanks in no small part to the geth, but EDI was going a long way towards proving the effectiveness of non-organic intelligence.

"Let's hear the apologies, Joker," Hackett said, when the pilot finally had a cocktail in his hand.

"Right. First of all, Kaidan can't make it back from whatever top secret mission the Council sent their best SPECTRE on. His message was so heavily scrambled that even EDI couldn't figure out where it originated from. But he said to have a glass of champagne for him. Also, as much as Jacob wants to be here, his wife went into labour eight hours ago, and it looks like it's going to be a long one. He's worried she might strangle him if he leaves her to engage in drunken reminiscing."

"Noted," Hackett said, and made a mental reminder to send his congratulations to Jacob Taylor once the birth had been announced.

"That will make six," Miranda mused. "His wife must have a thing for pain."

"He's catching up to you, Wrex!" Kasumi pointed out.

"Ha! Let him try! I'll still be going two hundred years from now, spawning noisy little Urdnots."

"If you ask me, one of you is quite enough," said Chakwas, but the smile which graced her lips took the sting out of the comment.

"Continuing," Joker said, "Vega's been conscripted by HQ into doing some statue dedication thing. I think they were hoping you'd do it, Admiral, but I guess the first N7 Marine designated after the Reaper's defeat was the next best thing. Jack's got to stay behind and supervise the party they're having at the Grissom Academy. Apparently a bunch of biotic kids can't be trusted not to drunkenly trash the place with their freaky super-powers. Zaeed asked me to tell you, and I quote, _'There's not a bloody chance I'm getting stuck in some uptight dress-uniform party that serves fizzy wine in poncy glasses and has those stupid little bits of food on silver platters. I'll remember Shepard in my own way, and you can bet I'll have more booze, more explosions, and a lot more fun than you.'_"

"That sounds like Zaeed alright," Tali said in a somewhat wry tone.

"And last but not least, Samara is busy with important Busticar business."

"I believe you just made what is known as a Freudian slip, Jeff," EDI said. "You said Busticar, when in fact Samara is a Justicar."

Joker rolled his eyes. "That wasn't a slip, EDI, it was a joke. Because of… y'know… Samara's very ample… assets."

"Moving on," Hackett prompted. "Now that we're all here, perhaps it's time to bring out the champagne, and perform our toast."

Of course, the simple matter of drinks wasn't actually quite that simple. Special dextro-amino champagne had been ordered for Tali and Garrus, and both Wrex and Grunt needed larger glasses because krogans tended to have firm grips which did not go well with delicate crystal-cut champagne flutes. Rupert Gardner, former Cerberus Mess Sergeant, who was currently doubling up as a barman, soon had all of the drinks sorted into their appropriate glasses, and he handed them out one at a time to everybody present.

Just as Hackett was about to open his mouth to speak, a quiet voice rose from the corner of the room.

"I'd like to say something."

Everybody turned, all eyes falling on Liara T'Soni, who had until this point been silently observing everything going on around her. In her wide blue eyes was an expression of sadness and loss, and of longing. Shepard's death had hit her hard, and for the first few weeks after the Reaper withdrawal, she could be seen wandering the streets of Earth as if looking for something amongst the debris. She had never found what she'd been looking for, and after more than six months she'd finally left, returning to Thessia briefly before heading out to some distant dig site. From then on, contact with her had been sporadic. It was as if something had died within her, at the moment of Shepard's death.

Hackett knew what she'd been searching for on the streets of Earth, and he knew why she'd gone to such remote places to resume her archaeological activities. She was looking for Shepard. Though everybody spoke of him as if he had died, nobody knew for sure what had happened up there on the Crucible. All anyone knew for sure was that the Reapers were gone. The Crucible had fired some sort of beam into the Charon Relay, which had affected all the relays in the galaxy. Then the Reapers had turned and left, disappearing back to the depths of empty space. Liara had been holding onto the hope that Shepard wasn't truly dead, that he could somehow return from the Crucible's grasp. What she was looking for, on so many dead prothean worlds, was a way to reopen the Citadel. The fact that she was here, now, told Hackett she hadn't succeeded, despite having the resources of the Shadow Broker at her disposal.

"Of course, Dr. T'Soni," he said, ceding the floor to her.

Liara unfolded her body from the chair she had been sitting in, standing up with her champagne glass in hand. It was difficult to remember that she was still little more than a child, as far as most asari were concerned. There was such an air of scholarly wisdom about her that is was easy to forget how relatively young she still was.

"I knew Shepard," she said, her soft voice carrying clear throughout the room, filling the silence left by a dozen people holding their breath. "And I loved Shepard in a way that I thought I would never be able to love anybody. He and I shared not just a physical bond, but also one of deep emotion and profound spirituality. I shared my mind with him more than once, and am grateful that he returned the favour, despite the dark things he wanted to keep hidden… perhaps to keep me safe from them. And I think that if Shepard were here now, he would not want us to use this time to mourn his death, but to celebrate his life. Therefore, I would like to propose a toast. To Commander Alex Shepard, the man who saved the galaxy in more ways than one. He lives on in our thoughts and our memories, and so long as we do not forget him, and his sacrifice, his spirit will never truly die."

Hackett was glad he hadn't spoken. Nothing he had planned on saying could have topped such a moving and heart-felt speech from the asari. As he took a long sip of his champagne, thankfully with a steady hand, he noticed more than one or two teary eyes. Dr. Chakwas didn't even seem to care about the tears which rolled down her wrinkled cheeks.

"I remember when I first saw him," Garrus said. "I'd just been chewed out by Executor Pallin, and I was angry enough to punch a wall. Shepard stopped in front of me and gave me one of those looks… you know, that sympathetic half-grin he was so good at? And he said, _'Tough day?'_ I'm not saying it immediately righted all the wrongs in the universe, of course, but I just felt a little less alone. Like he really understood what it meant to have to put up with the bureaucratic bullshit and mass of red tape."

"Remember when he recorded Mordin singing Gilbert and Sullivan?" Joker grinned. "Man, I was so tempted to play that clip over the comm, but Shepard wouldn't let me. He said it was for private viewings only."

"I still can't believe that he and Captain Anderson managed to arrange for Shepard to steal the _Normandy_ when she was grounded by the Council. Theft of a ship is a capital offence to the quarians… I was so sure we'd all get into serious trouble for it. I had nightmares of returning to my people in shame." There was a wistful tone in Tali's voice as she spoke.

Soon there was a steady stream of anecdotes flowing around the room as everybody recounted their favourite moments with Shepard, or how the Commander had changed their lives in some way. Liara remembered seeing him standing outside the stasis field where she'd been trapped on Therum, and recalled how she thought he was some vision dreamed up by her exhausted mind to taunt her. Dr. Chakwas described him as a naïve young man, wide-eyed during his first trip on a stealth-frigate, and subsequent encounter with Sovereign. Wrex remembered the shininess of his armour, and how he'd always stood up for himself no matter how big his opponent.

They were snippets of Shepard's life, shared moments of camaraderie that Hackett enjoyed hearing, but was also removed from. He himself had never witnessed these aspects of Shepard. And though he was glad he could get to know Shepard posthumously, it saddened him that he hadn't had the chance to do so whilst the commander was still alive.

_It should have been me._

Hackett surprised himself with his own thought. It had come from nowhere, but had been twenty years in the making, and now that it had been vocalised in his head, he realised how right it was. Shepard had been a young man in the prime of his life, with a beautiful asari lover and a career that had gone from strength to strength even after the whole Cerberus debacle. Alex Shepard had already done more than enough for the galaxy by that point, and it wasn't right that he should give the only thing he had left; his own life.

That task should have fallen to Hackett. If he'd been on the ground, instead of commanding the fleet from orbit, he might have made it to the Crucible. Shepard might be alive now, and Anderson too. And all it would have cost the galaxy was the life of one man who had already seen his best years and had nothing but his admiralty to live for. Shepard should have been the one to walk away from the battle unscathed. Anderson should not have died in the Citadel with him. Both men had far more to give the galaxy than Steven Hackett ever could.

The celebration of Shepard's life continued, but Hackett felt himself drawn back towards the window, his grey eyes falling once more on that floating sealed tomb. He wished Joker really did have a time machine, because he could have used it to go back and switch places with Shepard. Feeling as if he was being watched, he turned his head and noticed Liara staring at him. When she saw him glance to her, she gave him a nod, and then turned back to the party. Hackett shivered to the feeling of somebody walking over his grave. He had the distinct impression that Liara knew exactly what he was thinking. And that she wished he could have traded places with Shepard, too.


	3. Reaper

Steven's Sacrifice

_Chapter 3_

_Reaper_

The _SSV Viking_ was the second largest ship in the known galaxy. Out of respect for the asari, the Systems Alliance had purposely kept her 10 metres shorter than the Destiny Ascension, but they hadn't scrimped on technology. Ten equally-spaced Advanced Javelin Disruptor Torpedo launchers were mounted on the underside of the hull, and could be fired in parallel or rapid succession. The main gun, a Mark-Two Thanix Magnetic-Hydrodynamic cannon, ran centrally down the length of the ship, and was capable of firing a sustained beam at a moving target. Her defences were as impressive as her weaponry; full Silaris ablative armour covered the entirety of the hull, and she was equipped with twelve kinetic cyclonic-barrier emitters, each of which had its own back-up power supply in case main power was damaged. In addition, the ships GARDIAN-II laser defence system could, in theory, stop any missile 2,000km outside the ship's kinetic shields.

Hackett performed his early morning tour of the ship, walking part of the length from the officer's mess, down to engineering, and then up to the CIC on the main bridge. It tired him more and more these days, to walk so far around the vessel, but he wanted his crew to be ready for any potential surprise inspections he might spring on them, and the more they saw him walking around the ship, the more comfortable they'd be working with an Admiral peering over their shoulders. Besides, it was the only exercise he got.

"Admiral." EDI's voice was channelled through his command-grade omni-tool, and something in her synthetic tone immediately grabbed his attention.

"What's up, EDI?" he asked.

"We have just received word from Jacob Taylor. His sixth child was born at oh-six hundred hours and forty-two minutes. It is a girl, and she has been named 'Talulah Jayne Taylor.' I thought you would like to know."

"Thank you, EDI," he smiled. "I'll be sure to pass on my congratulations to the family in my next batch of communications."

"Would you like me to see to it for you?"

"Err, no. I'd like to do it myself. But thank you for offering."

"As you wish, Admiral. I will see you on the bridge."

EDI logged off his omni-tool, and Hackett shook his head as he resumed his tour. How could you possibly explain to an AI that to have a machine, no matter how intelligent, pass on a message of congratulations over the birth of a new baby, would be akin to a slap across the face. Some things just needed a personal touch. A _human_ touch. There were still some aspects of social interaction that EDI just hadn't managed to grasp, and Hackett wasn't quite ready to let her loose with a message congratulating somebody on the birth of their newborn child.

_Skrrrrrrrrk._

Hackett stopped mid-stride, his eyes roving the long straight corridor as he searched for the source of the screeching sound. He found it in the form of a comm speaker mounted at a junction of two corridors, and when he approached he realised it wasn't just screeching, but also throwing out static. Reaching up, he stood on his tiptoes and tapped the speaker with his fingers. The _Viking_ was still a new ship, and small glitches tended to pop up unexpectedly from time to time. A malfunctioning speaker wasn't a major problem, but it was an annoyance.

"EDI," Hackett said, activating the internal comm on his omni-tool. "Please send a technician to have a look at a glitching comm speaker on Deck C."

"Where on Deck C is the speaker located, Admiral?"

He glanced around for a location mark, and found it on a small bulkhead inscription. "At junction 7A6C, just outside the torpedo storage room."

"I am detecting no malfunction with that speaker, Sir."

"Perhaps it's a localised problem, or interference from an external power source. Send an engineer anyway."

"As you wish, Admiral."

Satisfied that the job would be seen to, he left the malfunctioning speaker and continued on his way. Twenty minutes later he exited the elevator which led onto the bridge. The CIC was at the fore and near the top of the ship, and needed over seventy staff to co-ordinate its basic functions. That included two co-pilots, who were currently in the cockpit with Joker, eight senior engineers, three comms officers, two navigators, not to mention the large number of technicians, weapons specialists and science officers. As well, the ship was home to a full platoon of marines, and some thirty or so pilots who flew the small fighter craft currently hanging in the launch bay. The _Viking_ wasn't so much a ship, as a small moving city, complete with its own sports recreation courts, gym, and one holocinema. A community of over 11,000 people lived and worked aboard the ship, and Hackett knew only a fraction of them by name.

"Status report," he barked as he stepped into the CIC.

His senior navigator and XO, a woman named Commander Teresa Cepuline, gave him a quick salute as he took his chair. She was almost as grey-haired as Hackett himself, but she was the best XO he'd ever had, and a mean chess player to boot.

"Engineering, tactical and propulsion are green across the board, Admiral. All fighters are docked and secured in the launch bay, and weapons are at full complement. Arcturus confirm they have cleared our flight path to the Charon Relay, and all stations report ready."

"Very good." He sat up a little straighter in his chair. It was too easy to slouch in the damned thing, so comfy was it. "Bring us about on a heading to the Charon Relay, then set a course for the Attican Traverse."

Commander Cepuline conveyed his orders to the crew. Sub-light engines were brought online, and co-ordinates passed to the helm, where Joker was busy manoeuvring several million tonnes of ship through space. He'd complained, when he'd been assigned to pilot the _Viking_, that she was too large and cumbersome, too difficult to turn slowly in a tight corner, and felt like a dead weight at speed, but he'd changed his mind over the past year. Flying a ship this big was a challenge for _any_ pilot, and Joker always liked a challenge.

Plus, the poly-suria seats were very comfortable.

"So," Cepuline said, taking her place beside the captain's chair as the crew worked efficiently around the CIC, "how was the reunion?"

"Good," Hakett said.

"And the _Normandy_?"

"Great."

"I hope the catering was enjoyable?"

"Very."

"You do realise that's three one-word answers you've just given me, don't you?"

He sighed. "I'm sorry, Teresa."

Cepuline was a great XO, which meant she rarely let her concern show, but now her grey eyebrows were starting to slope down as the beginnings of a frown crept across her face.

"What's wrong, Admiral?" she asked, her voice kept low, out of hearing range of the crew.

"Nothing's wrong. Everything's perfect. Last night, at the reunion, I saw people I haven't even glimpsed in years, and they're doing well for themselves. Tali's an Admiral, Garrus has a prestigious teaching job, Miranda's well on her way to buying her own solar system… they've all moved on."

"And you haven't?"

"I hadn't truly realised it before now," he admitted. "But no. I feel like I've been standing still for twenty years. All around me, things have been changing, progressing, people have been living their lives and living them well. But I'm still in exactly the same place."

"You're the commander of the entire Alliance military fleet, captaining humanity's flagship" Cepuline pointed out. "Some people might say that's not a bad place to be in."

"And twenty years ago, I would have agreed with them. But now I'm the commander of a fleet that's largely obsolete thanks to a long-standing galactic peace. I mean, just look at the _Viking_. The largest ship humanity's ever created, and what do we do with her? Head to the Traverse to root out a few measly pirates."

"You'd prefer open warfare? Large-scale destruction? Chaos?"

"I'd prefer to have a purpose." He sighed. Cepuline didn't understand. She was someone who could find a purpose in peace-time. Though her husband was dead, killed during the initial Reaper invasion of Earth, her children and grandchildren lived on. Earth wasn't just her home planet, it was the place where her family lived. She was also an explorer at heart. New worlds and their endless possibilities fascinated her. It gave her something to look forward to every time the _Viking_ entered a previously uncharted system.

Hackett suspected Garrus would understand his frustrations, but even the grizzled turian had a family to take care of. "I'm going to inspect engineering," he said, as he pushed himself up from his chair. "Please let me know when we reach the Traverse."

He waited only long enough to see his XO nod in confirmation, then stepped back into the elevator, pressing the button for Deck 11. He didn't expect anything to be amiss in engineering, but he needed an excuse to be moving around, to be doing _something_ other than sitting and waiting to die of old age, even if that 'something' was nothing more than unimportant busywork.

o - o - o - o - o

"Sir, the two pirate vessels are making a run for the relay, and two are heading into the Pegasus Nebula." The voice of Lieutenant Jonathan Simms, one of the _Viking's_ tactical officer, was full of suppressed excitement. On the _Viking's_ last two tours of the Traverse, there had been no action at all. But a turian frigate had gone missing here over a week ago, and pirates were the number one suspect. They didn't usually target military vessels, but sometimes desperate men did desperate things.

"Launch fighter-wings one and two," Hackett ordered. Unlike Simms, he felt little excitement. The pirate vessels were mostly old cargo ships retrofitted with whatever weapons could be scraped together from salvage yards. They posed no threat to the _Viking_, but the turian frigate, wherever it was being hidden, had teeth. "Tell them to intercept the two making a run for the relay." The fighters would be faster and more nimble than their mothership at sub-light speeds, better for intercepting fleeing vessels. Hackett suspected the two making a run on the relay were merely trying to draw the _Viking's_ attention away from the Pegasus Nebula. He'd seen such tactics before. Hell, he'd _used_ such tactics before. It was a diversion tactic that didn't always work, though. You could only use it against a man once before he came to expect it.

"Fighter-wings are away," confirmed the ship's flight co-ordinator. "Squadron leaders confirm ETA to targets is three minutes."

"Bring us about and put us on a heading to the nebula, three-quarters sub-light."

"You think the _Chitara_ is in there?" Cepuline asked.

"That's where I'd hide a stolen turian frigate. Science, do we have an analysis on the nebula's composition?"

"Aye, Sir," one of the science officers replied. "The Pegasus Nebula is a mixture of gasses and micro-particles left over from the formation of this star system. Previous stellar cartographers have noted this nebula might have become the system's fourth planet, had its mass consolidated. Survey vessels have noted pockets of ionising radiation present within the nebula."

"Admiral," EDI spoke up, "whilst our kinetic barriers will protect us for a short time against all but the strongest of ionising radiation, long-term exposure is not recommended."

"Perhaps we should simply wait the pirates out," Cepuline suggested. "A couple of hours and they'll be forced to leave the nebula or have their shields eroded away. After that, it won't be long before their hull is breached and they die."

Hackett looked at the viewscreen, at the images of the ships as they disappeared into the purple and blue haze of the nebula, and felt something stirring within him. He didn't want to wait for victory, like a vulture circling its dying prey. He wanted to charge into that nebula, destroy or incapacitate the pirate ships, and haul the _Chitara_ out using the _Viking's_ tow-beam, if necessary. It wasn't just the thrill of action that stirred him, but the fact that there could still be turian crewmen alive on the frigate. They wouldn't remain alive for much longer, inside that nebula; even a turian's thick skin could not protect against radiation.

"Helm, take us in," he said. And he had to give his crew credit; they obeyed his instructions immediately. Nobody questioned his judgement. They trusted him that much. "EDI, keep an eye on radiation levels outside the hull."

"Yes, Admiral."

As the _Viking_ moved forward through space, the purple-blue haze of the nebula surrounded her, draping itself around her like a blanket. Flashes of brilliant white indicated pockets of ionising radiation reacting with the gasses of the cloud; it was a beautiful display of light.

_Skrrrrrrk._

Hackett looked down at his omni-tool, which was flashing intermittently, and spitting out a noise that could only be described as static.

"EDI, is the radiation affecting ship systems?" Hackett asked.

"No, Admiral. Radiation levels outside the hull are well within safe limits, and I have detected no radiation of any kind within our kinetic barriers. Is there a problem?"

"Just my omni-tool playing up. Nothing important."

Because the omni-tool wasn't needed during a mission like this, he switched it off completely and turned his attention back to the viewscreen. This was a sight few people had seen, and he was enjoying every moment of it. But he hadn't forgotten why he was here.

"Can we scan for ship IDs?" he asked the bridge crew.

"Radiation is interfering with the scanners," one of the science team reported. "Scanning range will be limited to fifty-thousand kilometres."

"Go ahead and scan."

There was silence, interrupted only by the beeping of computers as the scans were initiated.

"Sir, I have something. A ship ID belonging to the _Chitara._ Thirty thousand kilometres hard to port."

"On the viewscreen," Hackett ordered.

The scene changed, and hanging there, in the middle of the nebula, was the sleek form of the _Chitara_. There was some battle damage along the interlocking plates of her hull, and she appeared to be damaged towards the aft.

EDI spoke up. "The ship is leaking plasma from one of its engines, and I am detecting fluctuating power signals from within. I believe the _Chitara_ is 'dead in the water,' as the saying goes."

"They must have towed her here whilst they tried to repair her," Cepuline said, her grey eyes fixed on the viewer. "Can the crew have survived, EDI?"

"I am detecting no life signs, and—"

"Sir," Joker interrupted, "I am receiving a priority-one transmission from… Admiral Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, Sir. It's coming in on an urgent channel, but the message is too garbled by the radiation. I can't relay it until we leave the nebula."

"Alright. Somebody get a tow on that frigate. I'm not leaving her to rot out here. Even if the turians can't salvage her, the least they can do is give proper burials to the crew. Joker, once the tow-beam's secured, take us out of the nebula and back towards the relay. We'll rendezvous with the fighters and hopefully establish a more reliable communications link with Rannoch."

The crew worked quickly to carry out his orders. In just a few minutes the tow had been extended and Joker was piloting the _Viking_ out of the nebula, dragging the _Chitara_ behind it. Then, one of the proximity sensors screamed out a warning.

"Enemy vessels at twenty-thousand metres and closing!" reported Simms on tactical.

"Where the hell did they come from?" Hackett demanded.

"They came at us whilst our sensors were temporarily blinded by a pocket of radiation, Sir!"

"They're charging weapons!" another tactical officer said.

"If they hit a pocket of radiation it could cause a chain of explosions within the nebula which even our shields may not survive," EDI pointed out.

"Joker, get us out of here," Hackett said. He could feel the adrenaline pumping, now, just like old times. It was almost enough to make him feel young again.

"She's going as fast as she can, Admiral." Joker's voice didn't sound strained, but Hackett could tell he was concerned. "Towing the _Chitara_ is slowing us down."

"Sir, the lead pirate vessel has locked on to us with their weapons!" Simms said.

"Drop the tow on the _Chitara_ and get us out of here!" Hackett ordered.

Everything seemed to happen at once. The proximity sensors screamed that an incoming missile had been detected, but before the GARDIAN system could shoot it down, it hit a pocket of ionised gas and the whole thing ignited in a bright red fireball. The lead pirate vessel was consumed by the violent explosion, and though the other two tried desperately to turn, the chained-explosions caught up with them. The _Viking's_ tow on the _Chitara_ was disconnected and the ship lurched forward now that it was no longer hauling the dead weight of the frigate. Hackett saw the scarlet plasma flames overwhelm the turian vessel, and she exploded in a crimson shower of sparks and boiling metal. The _Viking_ started to shake as the rapidly heated gasses of the nebula began to expand, and for one long moment Hackett held his breath, sure that this would finally be his end.

Empty space, velvet blackness, appeared on the viewscreen, and the ship finally cleared the nebula. What the sensors showed on the screen was no longer a winged-horse shape of swirling purple-blue gasses, but an angry red maelstrom of raging plasma fire.

"Damage report," Hackett said, finally remembering to breathe properly.

"One shield generator has been overloaded and burnt out, but other than that we got away with only a light singeing," EDI responded immediately.

"If that's your idea of a 'light singeing,' EDI, I'd hate to see your idea of a barbecue," Cepuline shot back.

"Admiral, I'm receiving Admiral Tali'Zorah's message, now," Joker said. "She's requesting to speak to you over the QED, in private."

Hackett nodded, even though Joker couldn't see the gesture. "EDI, dispatch an engineering crew to repair the damaged emitter. Lieutenant Farnsworth, recall the fighters and arrange for technicians to see to any required repairs. Commander Cepuline, please contact the turian Hierarchy and explain to them the fate of their ship and its crew… and express my regrets over this outcome. Joker, put the admiral through to the briefing room. I'll speak to her immediately."

As everybody began carrying out their orders, Hackett left the bridge by one of the side doors and stepped into the spacious briefing room. The QED was in the centre of the room, so that anybody using it had a 360-degree view of their surroundings, and as Hackett approached the machine sprang to life, displaying a full-size holo-image of Tali.

"Admiral, I hope you have no complaints over last night's gathering?" he asked.

Tali shook her head. She was still wearing her mask. She always did, when communicating with non-quarians. Said she just wasn't ready to show her face to the galaxy yet, after so long hiding behind her mask. He couldn't blame her for that.

"No, Admiral, but I'm afraid I have little time to exchange pleasantries."

"This sounds serious." In fact, he'd never heard her sounding so… worried.

"It _is_ serious. Four hours ago, one of our trade ships detected something orbiting the new geth colony on Krykos. Curious, it approached the planet and scanned the object, and its crew sent their readings back to Rannoch to be verified. At first we weren't sure it could be true, so we sent a scout ship, and it confirmed the trader's readings."

"Confirmed _what_, Admiral?" he asked. He didn't want to know the answer. Already he could feel his flesh crawling as goosebumps coated his skin. But the question had to be asked.

"A Reaper."

Hackett had always prided himself on being unshakable, but now he found himself reaching out for one of the chairs, using its high back to support him as he stood in front of the holo-emitter. A _Reaper_? Around a geth colony? Now? After all this time?

"We were concerned that the Reapers might be returning," Tali continued. "That perhaps whatever Shepard did to send them away had worn off. So we contacted the geth on the colony. They told us the situation could be explained, but there was only one person they would explain it to. You."

"_Me_?!"

"The full force of our military is mobilising as we speak, in case this Reaper is the vanguard of some new invasion, but out of fear of causing widespread panic, we have not yet divulged this information to anybody else, nor even to the rest of our people. Only the Admiralty board and a handful of the Conclave even know _why_ our fleet is mobilising. I know this is a lot to ask of you and your crew, but we request that you go to Krykos and speak to the geth about the Reaper. All we've been able to determine is that it is active, though at the moment, not aggressive."

"And if it becomes aggressive?" he asked.

"You are in command of humanity's greatest war ship, and our own fleet will be close by, to back you up." She took a step forward, and when she spoke again, it was quietly, as if she was afraid to be overheard. "Please, Admiral. We need to determine exactly what is happening on Krykos. The geth colony is only one jump away from Rannoch. Millions of our people have homes there, now. We do not want to lose everything that we've worked for. If word of this reaches them, many will take to their ships and return to space, and we may never get them to settle again."

"There's no need to ask twice, Admiral," he replied. "I know what's at stake here." If the Reapers truly were returning, somebody had to discover their motives. And if those motives were hostile, the first blow would be struck at Krykos. It was only fitting that the flagship of the Alliance fleet be there to strike that blow. "We'll be at Krykos in three hours."

"Thank you, Admiral." The amount of gratitude in her voice told Hackett just how much she feared he'd decline her request. Of course, quarians weren't used to relying on outsiders, even now. "Our fleet will meet you just outside the Yarala system, and escort you as close to Krykos as we dare, lest we raise the Reaper's ire."

"Then I'll see you in three hours," he agreed.

"Swift journey, Admiral. And may all of our ancestors watch over us this day."


	4. Shepard Redux

Steven's Sacrifice

_Chapter 4_

_Shepard Redux_

If tension had been high on the _Normandy_ during its first voyage in almost twenty-years, it was positively _orbital_ aboard the _Viking_. Hackett had told the crew the truth about their new mission the moment Tali had disappeared from the quantum entanglement device's holo-emitters. He saw no reason not to tell them, because as soon as the ship reached scanning range of Krykos, people would know what was happening, and rumours would spread around the whole vessel, leading to wild speculation and misinformation. It was better that they heard it from Hackett, who could tell them calmly and confidently just what their mission was about. Then he'd ordered a ship-wide communications blackout, so that nobody could spread the word to Earth or the colonies. Hackett wanted to know more before he reported to HQ. If they broadcast this, it could destroy the galaxy's much vaunted peace.

Silence reigned in the CIC. At least a third of the crew were youngsters in their early twenties, not old enough to recall the days when Reapers had occupied the Earth, turning its citizens into unthinking drones. But those youngsters had grown up hearing the horror stories of their elders, and seeing first hand holo-vid footage for themselves. None of them were eager to see a Reaper themselves. And as for the veterans aboard the ship… well, they knew what this mission meant, and they knew there was a good chance they might not be coming back from this. The _Viking's_ weapons were capable of destroying a Reaper with just a few well-aimed shots, but the same could be said for the Reaper weapons against the _Viking_. In the end, the outcome of any potential battle would come down to which ship got off the first shot.

"Admiral, we are approaching the Flotilla's rendezvous co-ordinates," EDI said.

"On screen," he requested. An image sprang up, some hundred or so vessels ranging in size from fighter to battle cruiser holding position in the vastness of space, each and every ship facing inward, towards the Yarala system.

"Looks like the quarians are taking this pretty seriously," Joker said. "I don't remember the last time I saw so many of their ships in one place. Oh wait, yes I do. It was at Earth, just before we kicked Reaper ass."

"Is that it?" Hackett heard Simms whisper to the man next to him. "I thought there'd be more."

"Many of the quarian ships have been dismantled for building materials on Rannoch, Lieutenant," Cepuline told him. Her hearing was still as sharp as it had ever been. "I'm certain the quarians sent every single available ship."

"I'm receiving a message from Admiral Tali'Zorah," said Joker. "She's asking permission to come aboard."

"Granted," Hackett replied immediately. "Ask someone to meet her in the airlock and escort her to the bridge."

He didn't have to wait long. The quarians had been holding this position for several hours, and Tali probably knew that tensions would be high amongst the crew of the flotilla. All it took was one hot-headed individual to decide to take action, and the whole defensive line could fall apart. Her shuttle docked promptly, and a few minutes later the young Admiral was stepping onto the bridge.

"Admiral Tali'Zorah," he greeted her. "I wish I could have welcomed you aboard under better circumstances."

"As do I, Admiral," she replied.

"My XO, Commander Teresa Cepuline," he said, introducing his second-in-command.

"Welcome aboard the _Viking,_ Admiral," said Cepuline.

"Thank you, Commander." Tali turned and gestured at the viewscreen. "With your permission, Admiral, I will tell our fleet to follow your ship into the Yarala system. They will halt behind the third planet and wait for further instructions, but I would like to accompany you to Krykos, if you have no objections."

"I'd welcome your input in dealing with the geth," he assured her. So far, the peace between the quarians and the geth on Rannoch was holding, with the AIs helping their former masters to rebuild their civilisation, and much of that was thanks to the efforts of Tali fighting to ensure equal rights for the synthetics. These geth on the colony, though, were more of an unknown. Would they be friendly? Hostile? Ambivalent? Would they attack right away? Had they become Heretics, worshipping their Old Machine gods again? "Joker, take us in."

The _Viking_ began to move forward, crossing the boundary of the Yarala system, and the ships of the Flotilla fell in behind her, separating themselves into distinct groups in case of attack. The combined fleet passed the outer planets, two large gas giants, and approached the third, a rocky mass of granite and ice. As the _Viking_ continued deeper into the system, the quarian ships slowed, and remained in the shadow of the planet. It wouldn't hide them from the Reaper's sensors, but it might shield them from weapons fire.

"If things go badly," Hackett said quietly, for Cepuline and Tali alone, "we're going to need to get word out to the rest of the galaxy. The fleets of the Alliance, the Hierarchy, the Salarian Union and the Asari Republics can be mustered relatively quickly, but the krogan still have few battle-ships, and a dozen other worlds which might be targets for a Reaper invasion will be almost undefended."

"Don't worry, Admiral," said Tali. "We have prepared automated messages to be sent to the other species of the Citadel Alliance, should the battle not go in our favour."

_Citadel Alliance_. It was an outdated name for the alien races who no longer had access to the Citadel. Together they had built themselves a new station, in the Citadel's former place of residence within the Serpent Nebula, but it was nowhere near as grand as the Reaper station had been. Less than a quarter of the size of the former Citadel, though protected by a fleet which included the Destiny Ascension, the unimaginatively named _New Citadel_ was where decisions were made of galactic importance. The krogan had an embassy there now, and the quarians too. There was even talk of re-opening the batarian embassy, too. The batarians had yet to form an agreement amongst themselves over that, though.

"Admiral, we are approaching visual scanning range of Krykos," said EDI.

"Let's see it."

The viewscreen sprang to life once more, showing the image of a brown rock planet about the same distance away from its sun as Earth was from Sol. And there, in orbit of the planet, was the Reaper. It made Hackett's blood run cold to see it, and as he glanced around the CIC he saw expressions of awe and horror painted across the faces of most of the crew. He knew just how they felt. In form, the Reapers resembled a cuttlefish… if a cuttlefish was 2km long, had glowing malevolent green eyes, and looked like it could crush a dreadnought with the grip of its hand-like tentacles. In reality, Reapers looked more like a monster out of an old horror movie, than a viable space craft.

"Well, here we go again," Joker quipped. Hackett didn't have the heart to upbraid him; he knew that inappropriate humour was how he dealt with worrying situations.

"Open a comm channel to Krykos," Hackett ordered.

"Channel open," EDI said.

"Geth colony, this is Admiral Steven Hackett. I have come as requested to discuss with you the matter of the Reaper in orbit of your planet. Please acknowledge that you have received this message."

In response, a mechanical sound came over the comm, like data transmitted down the line. Then, a synthetic voice became audible.

"Hackett-Admiral. Geth colony Krykos acknowledges your message. Stand by."

"Stand by? For what?"

But it was no use; the comm channel had shut down. Hackett turned to Tali.

"What did they mean by 'stand by'?"

"I don't know," she replied. "This is not typical of geth behaviour. Normally they would have contacted us as soon as we entered their communications range."

"Do you think they've been co-opted by the Reaper?"

"I'm afraid I couldn't say. As you know, synthetics cannot be indoctrinated in the same way as organics. I can't imagine the geth choosing to work for the Reapers again. Not after they've achieved their independence."

"What should we do?"

"I think there is only one thing we _can_ do," Tali said. "As the geth suggest, we should 'stand by.' If we're patient, we might find out exactly what's happening on Krykos."

"I hope they don't keep us waiting too long," said Cepuline. "We won't be able to keep the Reaper a secret forever. Sooner or later, word is going to get out, or a civilian ship may come too close and identify it."

"I could ask my fleet to set up a blockage around the system, to prevent any other vessels entering scanning range," Tali suggested. And when she continued, it was with some hesitancy. "But… the geth, and the Reaper, may view that as an act of aggression. An attempt to confine them to the Yarala system. It might provoke them to action."

"For the moment, let's stay as we are," Hackett said. He turned his gaze back to the behemoth on the screen. "Sooner or later they'll have to talk to us, and then we can decide what we're going to do about it."

o - o - o - o - o

"How's the situation now, Admiral?" said Governer Prekesh. She was leader of the Allied Earth Council this year, responsible for making all of humanity's important decisions—with input from the other councillors and military leaders, of course. Hackett had finally decided to tell the Alliance about the Reaper, because the sooner they knew, the quicker they could have their forces mobilised.

"Tense," he admitted. "We've been just outside orbit of Krykos for three days now, with no sign of movement from the Reaper. Every time we contact the geth, they tell us the same thing; stand by."

"And the quarian fleet is still providing back-up?"

"Yes, but I'm not sure how long I can rely on them for. A couple of hours ago, Admiral Tali'Zorah had to return to the fleet to settle a dispute. Apparently, some of the ships captains are advocating a strike against the Reaper whilst it's seemingly inert. Their weapons probably won't be able to tear the Reaper apart without our help, but they think they can destabilise its orbit and send it spiralling into Krykos. The only thing that's stopping them is the fact that they don't know if the Reaper will be destroyed during an uncontrolled atmospheric entry… and some have concerns that the geth might launch their own ships to counter-attack. It could plunge the quarians into another full scale war with the geth."

"It sounds like you've got a cauldron full of fireworks just waiting to go off, Admiral."

"For the moment, the situation is contained. Tali'Zorah is handling the quarian captains, and my own crew is ready to jump to action the moment it's required. But I admit, things could get… volatile."

"What's your own take on this, Admiral?" Prekesh asked. Hackett could see the worry-lines on her forehead, rendered in perfect detail by the QED's holo-emitters.

"That is this is a new invasion, it's a pretty poor attempt," he said bluntly. "In the past, Reaper tactics have relied upon the element of surprise. A single Reaper would open the relay on the Citadel to allow the rest of the swarm to come rushing in, destroying any defences and cutting off communications before anyone knows what's happening. If you're planning to invade, you don't sit in orbit of a planet for three days, with a full fleet of war ships breathing down your neck, giving your opponents time to muster their forces. I just can't see any logic to this situation."

Prekesh sighed. She looked tired, and he couldn't blame her. Back on Earth, it was almost midnight.

"Twenty-four hours," she said. "That's how long you have to determine what the geth and the Reapers are up to. After that, I'm going to have to inform the Citadel Alliance, and strongly recommend that they mobilise their fleets. We have to be prepared for every eventuality. If after twenty four hours you are unable to make contact with the synthetics, you and the quarian flotilla are authorised to destroy the Reaper and, if the geth retaliate, fire upon them too. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Governor. And the twenty-four hours are generous."

"I hope to speak to you again soon, Steven. But if not… good luck with your mission."

She signed off the QED, and the _Viking's_ briefing room went darker as the emitters shut down. For a long moment Hackett stared at the empty space where Prekesh had been standing. One day left to figure out how to resolve this situation without plunging the entire galaxy into another potential war between organics and synthetics. Such a war was not a prospect he looked forward to, despite his earlier lamentations of peace.

Then he realised that it wasn't just midnight on Earth-time, but on ship-time too. No wonder his head was pounding and his eyes felt as if they'd had all the moisture sucked out of them. He'd slept all of five hours over the past three days, and now his body was finally collecting the bill.

"EDI," he said, "I'm going to my quarters, to try and get a few hours sleep. Please wake me the instant something happens."

"Of course, Admiral," the AI replied.

The captain's quarters on the _Viking_ put those of the _Normandy_ to shame. A king-size bed took up only a small portion of the room's space, the lavish aquarium set into the wall was ten feet long and filled with fish from half a dozen colonies—it took two specially-appointed caretakers just to keep the damn things alive—and there was even a sizable work desk, where a captain could sit and write reports or browse the extranet.

When Hackett arrived in his quarters, he ignored the desk, upon which sat a pile of personnel requests filed before the _Viking_ left Earth, and didn't even glance at the colourful fish as they floated happily around their habitat, completely unaware of the Reaper orbiting the planet barely a weapon's fire away. He kicked off his boots and sank straight down onto his bed, too tired to pull the thermal blanket over his body.

The comfortable eider pillow welcomed his throbbing head, and the poly-suria mattress moulded itself to the shape of his body whilst supporting his weight. "Lights off," he commanded, and the dimmed lights went out entirely, plunging the room into darkness.

He felt his eyelids close as silence descended. How easy it was, in the darkness of his room, on the comfortable bed, to imagine himself drifting on some unseen breeze, strong currents of air holding up his body, taking the pressure off tired limbs and aching joints. As he lay there, he revelled in the simple pleasure of a comfortable bed. He felt his eyelids, as heavy as lead over his tired eyes, start to lower as the fingers of sleep began to wind their way through his mind. Desperate for a reprieve from consciousness, he opened his arms and welcomed the sandman's embrace.

_Skrrrrrrrk._

Hackett's eyes flew open and his body involuntarily jumped in surprise. Then he realised it was just another malfunctioning speaker. His heart was racing and he felt completely foolish. Imagine, jumping at a bit of static! Praying his heart would slow and not give out on him, he reached for the comm panel beside his bed.

"EDI, there's a damn speaker malfunctioning in my room. I thought you had engineers check out the internal comms system before we arrived at Krykos?"

There was static on the comm line, background radiation amplified by the ship's signal broadcasters.

"EDI?" he asked again.

"_Admiral Hackett."_

At the sound of the voice, Hackett felt the blood rush from his head, felt his skin go cold as if all the liquid in his veins had just frozen. _That voice!_ A synthetic voice, yet so very, very familiar. But it couldn't be… could it? Almost afraid to respond, Hackett licked his dry lips and opened his mouth.

"Commander Shepard?"


	5. The Stage and its Players

Steven's Sacrifice

_Chapter 5_

_The Stage and its Players_

"Shepard? Is that you?" Hackett asked the darkness.

"_Yes."_

"But _how_? Where have you been all this time? And where are you now?" A thought occurred to him. "Wait, are you aboard that Reaper orbiting Krykos?"

"_In a manner of speaking. You see, I __**am**__ the Reaper, Admiral."_

Hackett was stunned to silence. How could a man be a ship? Perhaps, then, this wasn't Shepard, but some new Reaper ploy to invade the Milky Way. The voice didn't _quite_ sound like Shepard's voice, it had something of a synthetic quality to it… but on the other hand, there was no mistaking the tone and inflection.

"What the hell do you mean, you're the Reaper? Have you been processed by those terrible liquidation chambers?"

"_Nothing so gruesome. It's a long story. I would like for you to come aboard me, so that we may talk more easily. It taxes me, to speak like this. EDI is trying very hard to block my transmission, though I'm sure she doesn't know it's me."_

"Shepard," Hackett replied, "if it's really you, then you have to know that I'm never going to agree to board a Reaper ship. The chance of indoctrination is too great."

"_I know. But I've disabled this vessel's ability to indoctrinate."_ A synthetic sigh was transmitted over the comm. _"Please. You don't know how hard it was for me, to ask you to board me. It sounded like some cheesy line out of a cheap Fornax slash vid."_

Hackett almost smiled. Now _that_ sounded like the Alex Shepard he knew. But still, the risks were great…

"_What if I make it easier for you, Admiral? Your ship—nice design, by the way, but what's with the size? It just screams 'compensation'—and the ships in that quarian fleet skulking behind the third planet, may lock their weapons onto me. I will keep my shields and barriers lowered at all times whilst you are aboard this vessel. Guard the closest mass relay too, if you like, just to ensure I can't escape with you aboard." _Shepard, or the Reaper, or whatever the hell it was, must have sensed Hackett's resolve wavering. _"Come on, Admiral. The Governor __**did**__ tell you to find out what I'm doing here, after all. And what better way to gather intel than to board me yourself? All I ask is that you come alone, but I won't ask you to come unarmed. Bring whatever weapon you like. Hell, bring a nuclear bomb if you like. Even a Reaper can't survive an internal nuclear explosion."_

"Alright," Hackett relented at last. It wasn't as if he had much to lose. Even if the Reaper was lying, it would give the rest of the galaxy an indication of its intentions. "I'll come, and I'll talk. But at the first hint of trouble, you'll be fired upon by the fleet."

"_I would expect nothing less. Come, Admiral. I know the hour is late, but all of your answers are waiting for you."_

The comm line went dead, but only for a moment. As soon as the Reaper cut itself off, EDI spoke up, and the lights in his quarters came back on.

"Admiral, I have detected an external attempt to hack into our communications relay," the AI reported. "I attempted to stop the intrusion, but do not believe I was successful."

"It's okay, EDI," he said. "Please wake the senior staff and have them report to the briefing room. Then contact Tali'Zorah aboard the Flotilla. We have urgent matters to discuss."

o - o - o - o - o

There was a quiet _clunking_ sound as the _Viking's_ kodiak shuttle docked in one of the Reaper's small ship bays. Once the sensors on the door indicated that the external air composition and pressure matched that inside the small transport vessel, Hackett pushed the button to release the door and turned back to speak to the pilot.

"If I'm not back here in one hour, you are to return to the _Viking_."

"Aye, Sir," the pilot agreed. But Hackett wasn't sure if the man would actually follow that order; leaving your CO behind, even when ordered to do so, was usually a career-ending no-no.

In the Reaper's docking bay, the air was chilly but not freezing. There was some light, being emitted by what appeared to be synthetic parts grafted onto, or growing out of, the organic-looking walls, but mostly it was an area of deep shadows. Hackett ran his fingers over the handle on his gun. He'd opted for a small pistol, because he didn't think he'd manage to carry an assault rifle for very long. Besides, pistols were more accurate.

Movement from one of the side-corridors caused him to draw his gun, and when a humanoid-sized geth unit approached, he didn't holster it immediately. The geth's communication unit hummed and whistled as it communicated with other geth, or perhaps with the Reaper itself, and it turned its synthetic-eyed gaze to Hackett's face, ignoring the pistol pointed right at it.

"Hackett-Admiral, greetings," the geth said. "We have been instructed to lead you to a communications node, where Shepard-Reaper can speak with you."

"Why doesn't he just speak to me here, now that I'm inside him?"

"That would require the process of indoctrination, and Shepard-Reaper has disabled that aspect of its vessel's functions."

"I see." Content that the geth wasn't hostile, he holstered his pistol. "Then lead on."

His guide took him through dimly lit corridors which mostly looked the same to Hackett. His omni-tool was set to active scan mode, and would be creating a map as he went along as well as scanning for life signs, power sources and any anomalies, but he was rather hoping he wouldn't have to fight his way out of this one. The geth, he suspected, knew their way around this Reaper capital ship much better than he. And they didn't suffer from arthritis, either.

There were more shadowy shaped moving in the darkness, and Hackett peered at them, trying to make them out. They didn't move and sound like geth, but what else could they be, other than… He shivered as the realisation of what they were crossed his mind.

"How much further?" he asked his guide.

"We are almost there."

The geth spoke true. A few hundred metres later, the corridor terminated in a room, which had some sort of semi-organic pedestal in the centre of it. "Press the central button," the geth instructed. Then it left him alone.

Hackett approached the terminal with the caution of a natural born soldier. He knew this could be a trap, but if it was, it was a very stupid one. The best time to stage an ambush would have been as he exited the kodiak shuttle, before he could get his bearings. With no better idea, and nothing to lose, he reached out and pressed the button in the centre of the console. It was amber, and seemed to pulse beneath his fingers.

"Now that's much better, isn't it, Admiral?" Shepard's voice was louder, here, less affected by static, and it sounded a little more human. "I'm glad you decided you could trust me."

"I still haven't decided if I can," he replied.

"Heh. You wouldn't be the best Admiral the fleet's ever had, if you trusted so quickly."

"Why did you keep me waiting for three days before contacting me?"

"Actually, I've been trying to contact you since before you even set off for Krykos. Unfortunately, the distance between us was too great."

"The static on my comm, and on my omni-tool? That was _you_?"

"Indeed," Shepard agreed. "I knew I had to get you closer, but I couldn't risk travelling to Earth myself, as it would have had everybody up in arms. I knew there was a quarian ship near this system, though, so I took a chance that the geth would be more willing to listen to reason than organics. In my experience, they usually are. Lack of emotion, you see."

"But I've been in orbit for _three days_, Shepard," Hackett said. Like most military career men, he'd become accustomed to waiting, but that didn't mean he had to like it. Especially not when the stakes were so high.

"I'm sorry, Admiral. But I _had_ to make you wait. I wanted you, and the others, to see that I was no threat. I wanted to give you plenty of opportunity to build up your fleets, so you would feel less rushed into something. Plus, I wasn't ready to speak to you. I'm still not. You got here faster than I anticipated, and your Governor's ultimatum has forced my hand."

"Why aren't you ready to speak to me yet?"

Shepard sighed. "That is actually the ending of a very long story. But the devil's driving, so I guess I should start at the beginning by answering one of your earlier questions; where have I been?"

"Start with what happened on the Crucible, if you don't mind," Hackett prompted. It would be good to clear up what had happened in those final moments of Shepard's life, right before some ominous beam activated all of the mass relays and then closed up the Citadel for good.

"Of course," Shepard acceded. "As you know, Anderson and I made it into the transport beam. We found Mr. Illusive himself up there, all indoctrinated and trying to stop us. He failed, clearly, and shot himself in the head. Not a great way to go. But I digress. Anderson was in a pretty bad way, so I knew it was down to me. I managed to activate the Crucible, and I met the Catalyst."

"_Met_ the Catalyst?"

"Yeah. Turns out the Catalyst was the entire Reaper AI. It took the form of a kid I saw killed on Earth. Probably knew I had a soft-spot for that kid. Catalyst bastard. As it turns out, though, the Catalyst had been expecting something like this. It knew that one day, an organic race would come up with a way to stop the Reapers once and for all." Shepard fell silent for a moment, and when he continued, his voice was quieter. "The Catalyst offered me options."

"What sort of options?" Shepard's story was so enthralling that Hackett didn't want to interrupt; his own voice felt out of place as he spoke. But he sensed that if he didn't ask the questions, Shepard's story wouldn't go any further.

"It said I could destroy the Reapers completely, but that action came at a cost. All synthetic life in the galaxy would be destroyed. The geth, EDI… all of them, gone. I know some people will think I'm weak for not taking that option, but I wasn't willing to sacrifice synthetic life to preserve organic life. Intelligence is intelligence, whether it's biological or artificial. Then there was the second choice. The Catalyst said I could add my life energy to that of the Crucible, or something like that. It would have altered everything in the galaxy on a cellular level, merging synthetic and organic life together, rendering both the Reapers and the extinction cycles obsolete."

"That sounds almost too good to be true," Hackett mused. What would life be like now, if Shepard had gone for that option? Would organics be able to communicate with synthetics on a non-verbal level? Would the galaxy be a place of bionic men and women?

"I thought so, too," Shepard said. "And I didn't want to make that decision for everybody in the galaxy. So I went with option three. The Catalyst said I could replace it as the Reaper AI, effectively taking control of the entire Reaper fleet."

"How did you manage to do that?"

"Painfully," Shepard said, with wry humour in his synthetic voice. "My body was destroyed in the process, but my consciousness lived on inside the Reapers. I was part of them all. I could reach out and touch every single one of them, no matter where they were in the galaxy. Of course, I stopped their attack immediately."

"So you can actually control all of the Reapers?" Hackett was astounded. He would never have guessed that such a thing was even possible. "That's a lot of power for one man to wield, Shepard."

"I know. But better a man than a heartless AI, right? That's what I thought, anyway."

"But if you had all of that power at your fingertips, pardon the expression, "why did you leave?"

"At first, I didn't intend to. I was just going to help with repairs to all the ships and cities that had been damaged across the galaxy. Help undo some of the damage, y'know? But after a few minutes, I started to get a better grasp on the Reaper memories, and I discovered something… alarming."

"What was it?" The room Hackett was standing in felt a lot colder now, and he suppressed a shiver.

"What do you think the Reapers did between extinction cycles?"

"Hibernated in dark space until the Citadel relay was activated?"

"That's what I thought, too," Shepard agreed. "But it turns out we were wrong. Very, _very_ wrong. From the Reaper data I was assimilating, I discovered that although the Reapers originated in this galaxy, it's not the only one they've visited. There are countless galaxies out there, and countless Citadels, and countless Relays. Yes, the bulk of the Reaper armada was in the Milky Way, trying to end our cycle, but there were vanguards left behind in other galaxies, as Sovereign was left in ours. And because those Reapers had not been within the catchment area of our galaxy's mass relay network, they were not 'reprogrammed' like the Reapers here, nor subject to my influence.

"I knew that Earth would survive, and that our galaxy would be safe for some time, so I set about returning to dark space, and once there, I travelled to some of those other galaxies. Unfortunately, I was forced to destroy the vanguard Reapers, as I could not control them and they did not recognise my commands. The old AI programming was still active within them, and I couldn't overwrite it."

"You sound almost sad about it," Hackett pointed out.

"I am. Knowing now what the Reapers are, that each one represents a unique civilisation, I wish I could have saved them, or convinced them to come around to my AI way of thinking. But I couldn't. So I did to them what I hated most about the Reapers; I destroyed their civilisations."

"So the only Reapers left now are those under your direct control?"

There was a moment of silence before Shepard replied. "I wish. The only Reaper left now is the one you're standing in."

"What?!"

"I was so foolish. So naïve. So arrogant. And that was my downfall. I underestimated those other galaxies. I thought our people, gaining knowledge from the protheans as we did, were the smartest people around. I thought we were unique. I thought **I** was unique. I didn't expect other galaxies to have built Crucibles of their own. In one of those galaxies, its people were waiting for me. As soon as they detected my arrival, they activated their Crucible. I don't know whether that Crucible had some creepy AI kid on it, or whether it was something else entirely, but clearly they'd discovered how to manipulate the mass relays to destroy the Reapers, just as I had been given that option. In less than five minutes, every single Reaper in that galaxy had been eliminated. I felt the loss of each civilisation as it died, removing knowledge from my collective consciousness."

"How on Earth did you survive that?"

"This Reaper you are standing in had sustained damage during a fight with one of the rogue Reaper vanguards. It remained behind, in dark space, to affect repairs. As the energy beam ripped most of my Reapers to shreds, this one was on the cusp of the galaxy, and I managed to download as much information into its organic memory as possible before bringing it here. So there you have it. Shepard's folly. Thinking he could be a hero and save everyone. You'd think I would have learned better by now."

Hackett put his hand on the console, knowing that it was a stupid gesture, but wanting to try and comfort the man he had once known. Shepard had always been idealistic, and believed in saving as many lives as possible, which probably explained why he'd sacrificed himself to become the Reaper AI. He only wanted to help, but his plan had backfired, and badly. But despite the friendship and respect he felt for Shepard, he was still the head of one of the largest military fleets in the Milky Way. And he still had a job to do.

"Are we in any danger from that galaxy?" he asked. "Could its people have followed you back here?"

"No. The Reapers did their job well, during previous cycles. The people of that galaxy are marginally less advanced than the protheans were; their ships lack intergalactic FTL drives. As far as a I know, the Reapers are still the only ships in the galaxy capable of intergalactic travel. But one day, other races in other galaxies will figure out how to create intergalactic drives, or they'll invent mass relays which can span galaxies, not just systems _within_ galaxies. And when that happens, we're going to need to be ready."

"Is that why you came back?"

"It's _one_ of the reasons I came back." Before Hackett could probe the meaning of his evasive words, Shepard continued. "I plan to share as much knowledge as is left in my memory with humanity, and our allies. I've already begun helping the geth upgrade their shielding, in return for their help with a little… project."

"Project?" Hackett prompted.

"Walk out of this room and down the corridor. Take your first left, and then your first right. There's something you should see."

The amber light went out on the communication terminal, and Hackett was left with silence. Everything that he'd heard since boarding the Reaper sounded almost too fantastic to be true, like something out of a blockbuster sci-fi flick. If what Shepard said was true, then the Reapers were now all but extinct, and the Milky Way's greatest threat came not from synthetic life forms, but from organics in other galaxies.

Deciding it was best to listen to Shepard's instructions for now, he left the room and followed the directions that had been given to him. As he walked, he activated his omni-tool, and noticed it picking up life-signs all around. Husks, he suspected, because the geth would not register on the organic filter currently applied to his scanner. How many of those husks were people he had known? How many were innocent men and women, stripped of their consciousness, their humanity, their dignity, and forced to become mindless slaves of the Reapers? Some people considered synthetics an abomination, even now, but Hackett knew better. At least synthetics had a consciousness of sorts. The husks were the true abominations, but the media didn't like to remind people of their existence, so they were conveniently forgotten about, and the Reapers demonised to a greater extent.

As he approached the room Shepard had directed him too, he heard the beeping and whistling of geth as they communicated. Judging by the noise, he guessed five or six in total, and when he stepped into the well-lit chamber he found he wasn't wrong; five geth were working there, two of them operating consoles, one of them observing, and two others working on what appeared to be a sixth geth unit in creation. The unit's skeleton had been assembled, and a basic synthetic musculature attached. Other than that, the unit did not look much like other geth. Its legs were not bowed backwards, it wasn't quite as slender through the body, and the head was decidedly human, lacking the central photoreceptor shared by all geth units.

"What are you doing?" Hackett asked the observing geth.

It wasn't the geth who answered, but Shepard, projecting his voice through another terminal in the room.

"They are building my body."

"Your body? Are you mad, Shepard?"

"Maybe I am, a little." When he heard Shepard's hurt tone of voice, Hackett regretted his accusation, but it was too late to retract it. "You don't know what it's like, Admiral, to be out there, in space, all alone. Even when I still had the other Reapers, it wasn't like having real people to talk to. It was more like talking to myself, only myself talked back with billions of different voices. Even the geth can't understand what it was like for me. When you're a ship, you have no body. You can't touch anybody. You can't hold a person, or relate to them in any way, because they perceive you to be only an AI inside a big lump of advanced technology."

"And you think building yourself a new body will make everything alright?"

"I'm not stupid. I know that nothing will be like it was before. Twenty years is barely the blink of an eye to a Reaper, and I know that the people I knew and cared for—my friends—will have changed, and that maybe this will be too much for them to accept. But when I meet them again, I don't want them to see a Reaper. Anything would be better than that. Even seeing a tinman body. At least they'll have a face to talk to. At least I'll be able to look them in the eyes and shake their hands."

"There's one thing I want to know," Hackett said, as one of Shepard's earlier statements sprang up in his mind. "Why did you contact me? Why not—"

"Liara?" Shepard interrupted. "Hmm, let's see. 'Oh, hi, Liara. I'm back. Oh, and by the way, I'm a Reaper. But don't worry, I'm having a nice new geth-body built.' Yeah… I couldn't do that to the woman I love, Admiral. I guess despite all my heroic acts, I'm still a coward at heart. Besides, if she cries, I want to have hands with which to wipe away her tears. I want to be able to hold her in my arms and pretend that everything is going to be okay, even if it's just for a few minutes. Plus, I need your help."

"For what?"

"That body the geth are building for me… I can download part of myself into it, go all mobile just like EDI, but in order to remain full control of my Reaper whilst I'm doing it, I need to run my consciousness through the Citadel and establish a viable uplink."

"Why? EDI didn't need to do anything like that."

When Shepard spoke, Hackett got the impression that he'd be smiling, if he had a face to smile with.

"No offence, Admiral, but EDI is an AI modelled on Reaper tech but ultimately created by humans. I, on the other hand, am a human being inside a five-million-year old giant techno-organic spaceship, residing alongside a billion processed minds stored in a semi-aware consciousness. My situation is a little more complex."

"And you need me to help you open the Citadel?"

"No, I can open the Citadel myself. I need you to get me there. I've been monitoring the extranet since I arrived back in our galaxy. I've heard what people say about the Reapers. I even watched that vid, _Day of the Reapers_. The lead actor looks nothing like me, by the way. As soon as I get my body, I shall be writing a strongly worded e-mail to the director, you can be sure of that. So I know that I'm not likely to get to the Citadel without sparking some brand new war, and I'd rather not have to kill anybody to enact my plans."

"And after you've got your body? What then?"

"I really don't know," Shepard sighed. "Educate humanity, I guess. Invite scientists aboard to study my tech and upgrade as much as we can. Try to get a leg-up on all the other galaxies out there. But at least I won't be alone. At least I'll have a body, and be able to move around, and pretend I'm a real boy, Geppetto! So, what do you say? Escort me to Earth, let me do my transfer thing, and in return I'll open up the Citadel again. People can live on it, use it, hell, I'll even move it back to the Serpent Nebula, if you like; I can do that, you know."

"I'll have to put it to the HQ, and the Citadel Alliance, before I can give you a decision," he said. Indeed, if he made a decision like this _without_ consulting them, they'd probably ask for his command.

"I expected as much," admitted Shepard.

"In the meantime, there's a quarian aboard the flotilla who'd be very happy to see you."

"Yeeaaah… about that. Could we try to keep word of my existence quiet? I know you have to tell the brass, and Tali already knows its me because of your meeting with her before you came here, but I'd like Joe Public to be kept in the dark, at least until I get my new body."

"You're afraid Liara will hear about you, and want to see you?"

"Is it that obvious? But yes. I don't want Liara to see me like this. I don't want her to think of me as one of the machines who facilitated the invasion of her homeworld. As for Tali… tell her I'm looking forward to seeing her, and hearing all about life on Rannoch. In fact, I'd love to see Rannoch myself. But first, I have my own mission to complete. There'll be time enough for rocking when we're old."

"Alright, Shepard. I'll return to the _Viking_ and put in the calls."

"Thank you, Admiral, I appreciate it. I'll have one of the geth escort you back to your kodiak."

Hackett nodded. "I'll be in touch as soon."

"Hackett-Admiral, please follow us," one of the geth units said.

Taking a last look around the room, Hackett spent a moment watching the geth at work. The new unit really _did_ have a Shepard-shape about it. He just hoped that Shepard's plan wasn't a pipe-dream. Twenty years was a long time to be alone in space, and Hackett wasn't sure how much longer the Commander would be willing to tolerate existing solely inside the techno-organic shell of a Reaper.


	6. Homecoming

Steven's Sacrifice

_Chapter 6_

_Homecoming_

"I can't believe it." In the _Viking's _comm room, Tali'Zorah looked just about ready to faint. Joker didn't look much better, and even EDI looked shocked by the current turn of events. Cepuline was managing to keep her cool, but then, she'd never met Shepard in person.

"He's alive?" Joker said. "And a _Reaper?!_"

"I'm still not convinced," said Governor Prekesh. She had no choice but to play devil's advocate; she had billions of people to think of, not just on Earth but in the colonies too. "It all seems very… convenient."

"Perhaps, we could have EDI run a scan on the Reaper," Cepuline suggested. "She has to have dozens of Shepard's neural scans stored in her memory banks aboard the _Normandy_. If she can match them to the Reaper, won't that prove it's Shepard?"

"I'm afraid that won't work," EDI said. "In order to perform a neural scan for the purpose of matching it to Shepard's, I would need to have a human brain to scan. The Reapers do not have a neural network which is even comparable to a humanoid brain."

"Governor, if that really is Shepard out there, we can't just leave him!" said Joker. "First rule of life in space is that you never leave a man behind. Especially not when that man's saved your ass more times than you can count."

"I understand your frustrations, but please try to understand my own position. If we escort a Reaper to Earth, it's going to frighten people, even if it _is_ Shepard. The sheer panic it could cause… mass hysteria, rioting… it's a risk we have to weigh up carefully before coming to a decision."

"Nobody has to know," Joker said, with just a touch of petulant sulk on his bearded face.

"They would find out. We can hardly shut down air space in Sol, and the moment the media gets wind of it, there'll be no stopping the rumours."

"Actually, Governor, you _can_ shut down air space in Sol," EDI said. "The Alliance Fleet is entitled to one training day per Earth year. All non-military ships may not enter or leave the system during military manoeuvres, and they must also be landed on the closest planet or docked at the nearest space-port."

"We haven't invoked that old law in decades," Prekesh pointed out.

"Then perhaps you could start the custom anew this year."

The Governor sighed wearily, and Hackett could see the strain her eyes. He felt a moment of pity for her; she was a democratically elected peace-time ruler, unused to making serious military decisions. Although she was wise and experienced, she was also out of her depth on this one.

"I'll propose it to the rest of the councillors," she said. "But we have to take into consideration that this might be a ploy. If that Reaper opens the Citadel, it may activate the mass relay within, and if there's a swarm of Reapers waiting in dark space, it could bring them right to our doorstep."

"If there _are_ Reapers out there," Hackett countered, "why would they attack now, after we've had twenty years to build up our forces and devise defences against them. They could have wiped us out twenty years ago. For what it's worth, I believe the Reaper. I think it really is Shepard."

"And you also have my support, Admiral," Tali'Zorah spoke up immediately. There was a determined and defiant tilt to her masked head. "Should you escort the Reaper to Earth, two of my largest dreadnoughts will accompany you, and I will be aboard one of them."

"I will relay your message of support to the council also, Admiral," Prekesh said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a dozen men and women to wake from their beds. I'll contact you once a decision has been made."

The holo-emitters switched off as Prekesh logged out. Hackett allowed himself to relax a little, each of his weary muscles objecting to being out of bed. But he could tell that some of the people in the room still had things to say, so he turned to Cepuline to issue her new orders.

"Will you return to the bridge, and keep an eye on what's happening?"

"Of course, Admiral."

As soon as she'd gone, the voices spoke up.

"How is Shepard doing, Admiral? I mean _really_ doing?" asked Tali.

"I want to go over there," Joker said, a determined gleam in his hazel eyes.

"It will be interesting to see observe an organic mind adapts to a synthetic body after spending time as an AI," EDI mused. "Perhaps I will be able to study Shepard and write a research paper on the matter."

"First," Hackett said, "you can't go over there. Any of you. Not yet. Shepard doesn't want anyone to speak to him whilst he's… well, a Reaper. He thinks there's too many bad memories. I can't say I blame him, either."

"But he's our friend. We won't think any less of him for something that was largely beyond his control," Tali said softly. "I used to have a crush on him, you know, after he first rescued me." There was a hint of amusement intertwined with sadness in her voice. "When I was down in engineering with Adams on the _Normandy_, I used to daydream that Shepard and I would return to the Flotilla and live together aboard the _Normandy_." She gave a quiet laugh, dismissing her own dreams. "The foolish musings of an impressionable child. Even back then, I could see he only had eyes for Liara. His whole face used to light up when he saw her. It never once lit up like that for me."

"Or for me," Joker said with a sad sigh. But it had the right effect; Tali let out a chuckle, and suddenly her posture was straight and proud again. "But I've got a bad feeling about Prekesh," he continued. "I get the feeling she's too concerned with public opinion around voting time to make a potentially dangerous decision like this."

"I find it far more likely," Tali said, "that she's concerned about what Shepard's return will do to her own political influence. He is a hero; people may demand that he lead them on your council. I have seen such things happen before."

"You both judge her too harshly," Hackett told them. He'd known Prekesh for many years; she'd been a private contractor, supplying weapons to the Alliance, before she'd become a politician. A _lot_ of people had changed their career paths, after the war with the Reapers. "She's a good person, and she wants to do the right thing, but dealing with Reapers is way above her pay grade. For now, we will have to put our faith in her, and hope that she comes through for us."

"I will return to my fleet," Tali said, "and order all but two of my ships to return to Rannoch. I will ask the crew not to speak of what they've seen, but there are millions of quarians in that battle group, and eventually one of them will talk. I'll try to delay that moment for as long as possible. There is no point in scaring the rest of the galaxy until Shepard has his chance to get a proper body."

"Thank you, Admiral," Hackett nodded. "One of my crew will escort you back to your transport shuttle. Joker, please had back to the cockpit; I get the feeling the crew are a little more relaxed knowing you're at the helm."

"Of course they are," Jeff scoffed. "They know how many Reapers I've gone up against. Best track record in the whole galaxy." EDI gave him a very pointed look, and he cleared his throat. "Err, EDI helped a bit, naturally."

Tali left, to return to her fleet and begin making the necessary preparations. EDI helped Joker out of his chair, and together they made their way out of the briefing room and into the CIC. For the first time, Hackett found himself wishing he had his own personal EDI to help him when his pain was at its worst. On good days-and he was fortunate that most of them were still good-he was able to move around all day with very little discomfort. But on bad days, his joints ached and ached like they were going to fall off. What he really needed was a full twelve hours sleep, to help refresh his body and his mind. He had a suspicious feeling, though, that he wasn't going to get it.

o - o - o - o - o

The _Viking_ dropped out of FTL beside Pluto, followed immediately by the Shepard-Reaper, and then Tali'Zorah's dreadnoughts. Joker took the ship on a straight course to Earth, where half of the Alliance's fleet was waiting for their arrival. The other half was stationed at Arcturus, just in case this was a trap.

"Viewscreen," Hackett ordered, and the image of hundreds of ships surrounding the inert Citadel sprang to life. "Bring us to a full stop fifty-thousand kilometres away from the Citadel."

"Aye, Admiral," Joker responded.

"EDI, signal the rest of the fleet to stand by. Ask Admiral Tali'Zorah to guard the relay, in case we're wrong about this."

"Yes, Admiral."

There was silence on the bridge as if everybody was holding their breath. _Well, Shepard, we're here,_ Hackett thought. _Whenever you're ready._

"Admiral," EDI spoke up. "The Reaper had requested that you board it before it opens the Citadel and docks."

"Did it give a reason why?"

"No."

"Sir, this could be a trap," Cepuline pointed out. "A way to take you hostage inside the Citadel.

"It could," he agreed. "But it could also be a simple case of a man not wanting to be alone."

"Presuming, of course, this is definitely Shepard."

"I'm certain it is."

"I hope you're right."

"You have command of the _Viking,_ Commander," he said. "I trust I don't have to tell you what needs to be done if I'm wrong."

"I know what to do," she assured him. "Good luck, Admiral."

"Thank you. Take care of my ship whilst I'm over there; I'll be wanting it back, after."

Because the Reaper had stopped only a short distance from the _Viking_, like a foal sticking close to its dam for comfort and protection, the kodiak shuttle did not take as long to reach the behemoth this time. Again, Hackett was escorted from the airlock by a geth unit, which took him straight to the chamber in which Shepard's new body was being created. Good progress had been made on the body; the synthetic musculature was completely in place, on everywhere except Shepard's face, which was a metal-polymer approximation of his original features.

"Looks good, huh?" Shepard said, the voice resonating out from the communications terminal.

"Very," Hackett agreed. When Shepard had first told him about this body, all of twenty-four hours ago, he'd been expecting something like EDI's body in construction. But this was more like a geth unit. It still didn't look finished, though.

"This is just the first stage," Shepard explained. "After I've downloaded part of myself into the body, the geth are going to make me a sort of… fake skin layer, to go over it. Haptic feedback transmitters will allow me to have the synthetic equivalent of a sense of touch. By the time we're finished, I'll look almost like my old self. I'll even have hair! Regulation military cut, of course."

"Why do you need the geth to do any of this?" Hackett asked, curious about the synthetics' continued presence aboard the ship. "Why not just do it yourself?"

"The Reapers have always required other races to assist them with the finer points," the commander explained patiently. "That's why they adapted the species that was originally the Keepers, and set them to maintaining the Citadel. That's why they modified the protheans into Collectors, and kept them around in case they came in useful. That's why they indoctrinated people like Saren, and Benezia, and Mr. Illusive. The Reapers are huge, and powerful, but it's a trade-off. Through indoctrination, they can assume control of a body, but they cannot experience life as we know it themselves. Plus, no hands. I need the geth to do the manual labour that I can't, and the husks aren't capable of."

"Ah yes, the husks," Hackett mused aloud. He hadn't mentioned to the Governor, yet, but he couldn't imagine she would be pleased about them."

"I know what you're going to say," Shepard interrupted. "Yes, they're terrible, horrible things, a painful reminder of what the Reapers did to us. I wish I could get rid of them. But I can't. They're not just shock troops, they're also caretakers. They tend to this Reaper's maintenance needs. I know it's small consolation, but they're not suffering. The people that they were are now dead; they're just empty shells programmed to obey the Reapers."

"You're right, that's no consolation at all. And I doubt it will be consolation to the families of the husks, either."

"I'll keep them out of sight. They're of little use to me now, anyway. The geth are much better for this sort of thing. And better company, too."

Hackett glanced around at the five units hard at work, readying Shepard's new body for transfer. "You speak to them?"

"Well, we don't discuss the weather or anything. And it's not like speaking as you and I are doing it. More like a sharing of data packets. But it's the closest thing I've had to conversation with something other than myself in some twenty years. I'm eager to change that."

"Why did you ask me to come here?"

"Because no living thing has stepped foot on the Citadel since I closed it following my encounter with the Catalyst. I'd like you to be the first. And because if this transfer into my body is successful, I'd like to have a friendly face to greet me when I awake."

"_If_ it's successful?" Hackett asked pointedly. "You mean there's a chance it might not work?"

"There's always a chance of failure. Always. Even the Reapers were not immune to that But I'm confident it will work. I need to make only minor adjustments to the crucible when I'm docked with it. I'd like you to accompany the geth to the Crucible whilst I make the necessary arrangements. Don't worry, they know where to go."

"Shepard, if this works…" Hackett began. But what could he say? What Shepard was attempting to do defied logic and words.

"Yes?" the commander prompted.

"I'll buy you a drink."

"Well, I won't have a working digestive system, but I appreciate the sentiment. Now, I'm opening up the Citadel. I wish I had a viewscreen in here, so you could see it, Admiral." There was a sense of awe in Shepard's voice, the same awe that everybody felt upon seeing the massive station for the first time. Only now, Shepard wasn't seeing it with human eyes, but with the sensors of a Reaper. How different it must be!

"What's happening now?" Hackett asked. Shepard had been silent for a few minutes; was there a problem with the Citadel?

"Shepard-Reaper is focusing most of its processing power on docking with the Citadel," one of the geth explained without ceasing its work.

"Oh."

For a few minutes Hackett busied himself with examining the room, trying to work out the various systems. He hadn't had much chance, during his last visit, to explore, and he wanted to take advantage of these few moments of distraction. The best he could work out was that he was in some sort of laboratory, but he suspected the Reapers didn't have much use for science labs themselves.

"What is room?" he asked one of the geth.

"A power distribution node," it replied. "We required direct access to Shepard-Reaper's power network, in order to create the bipedal platform it wishes to partially inhabit."

"It's done," Shepard said. Was it Hackett's imagination, or did Shepard's synthetic voice sound more strained now?

"We're docked with the Citadel?" he asked.

"Yes. Now, if you'd be so good as to follow the geth, they'll show you the way."

It wasn't as if Hackett had much choice, and he'd come this far already; might as well see it through, and be there for Shepard just in case this didn't work. And just in case it _did._ The geth put the new body on a movable stasis table, similar to the ones the Collectors had used to abduct human colonists, and they set out from the power distribution chamber in silence. To Hackett's eyes they seemed an honour-guard, escorting the body of a fallen comrade to its final resting place. In a way, that's what they were. The geth considered Shepard a hero, just as their organic counterparts did. Only, they weren't taking his body to its resting place, but it its place of birth. Did the geth _feel_ anything about that? Were they even _capable_ of feeling anything about it? Hackett wondered.

A flesh-like door opened, exposing what probably passed for an airlock to the inside of the Citadel. As Hackett stepped out onto the enormous station, he looked around, letting his eyes absorb the sights. He was in part of the Citadel he'd never been to before, somewhere near the centre of it, further out from the Presidium. Everything was so clean, so… perfect. Just as it had been the first time he'd walked its streets, over thirty years ago now.

Stepping towards a balcony, he looked down below at the Presidium. The fountains were flowing, crystal clear water pouring from them, too far away for him to hear its musical song. The trees were as green as ever, some bearing fruit, and from his vantage point he could just about make out the krogan monument that had been erected following the Rachni War.

From this angle he couldn't see the faux blue sky and white clouds which were normally projected over the Presidium's environmental dome, but he knew, just by looking down at the place, that the sky down there would be as blue as ever. And when he turned his gaze in the opposite direction, towards open space, he saw the bulk of the Alliance fleet waiting patiently for their instructions. Behind them, Earth was a small blue and white sphere of breathtaking beauty; it had not yet travelled far enough from the Citadel to be rendered invisible to the naked eye.

"Hmm." Shepard's voice rang out through the Citadel, and Hackett guessed he'd taken control of the comms system. "When I closed the Citadel, I left it in Earth's orbit."

"A dozen dreadnoughts had to tow it further away," Hackett explained. "And it wasn't easy. But its presence in Earth's orbit was upsetting the tides; The Netherlands and Bangladesh were practically underwater as the oceans were torn between the Citadel and Luna, and it was threatening to destabilise the moon's orbit."

"Oops. Sorry. Didn't think about that," Shepard said, in a somewhat sheepish voice. "I'm glad you were able to fix it. And speaking of fixing, it looks like the Keepers have done a good job on this place."

"What do you mean?"

"The last time I was here it was… not pleasant. Bodies, everywhere. Asari and humans, turians and salarians, elcor, hanar and krogan. The volus, I think, were the worst. When their pressure suits were pierced, they sort of… exploded. There was blood, so much blood. Pooling on the floor, painting the walls, running through the fountains…"

The whole station shuddered, as if an earthquake was tearing through it, and Hackett grabbed the balcony rail before he could be unbalanced enough to fall over.

"Sorry," Shepard said. "Bad memories. Glad the Keepers cleaned things up. Probably took them the full twenty years to get the blood out of the carpets."

Hackett said nothing. The reason Shepard got on so well with Joker, was that they both shared the same sense of inappropriate humour. He could only begin to imagine how horrifying it had been for Shepard to come here and see so many dead bodies. The commander had always prided himself on his ability to save lives, on his willingness to go to any length to protect people. He likely took it as a personal failure, that he had not been able to save those slaughtered on the Citadel by the Reapers and their husk slaves.

The geth continued, steering and guarding their precious cargo along high walkways and up steep ramparts. The path they were on seemed to be winding around something, and it was only when Hackett looked up that he realised where they were. At the top of the massive sphere shape, the Reaper was attached to a part of the station which jutted out towards space, like a malevolent limpet clinging to the bow of a ship.

"We're in the Crucible, aren't we?" Hackett asked.

"The outer walkways of the Crucible, to be precise. There's a small room not far from here which contains a command relay. I can use the relay to route part of my consciousness into my new body whilst simultaneously maintaining control of the Reaper."

"What happens if you lose control of it?"

"I won't."

"I know you're confident this will work, Shepard, but I have to consider every possibility."

"Well, if I lose control of it, I guess your fleet will destroy it. I'm sure they need little incentive to destroy the 'Reaper threat.' Right?"

"Can you blame them?" Hackett said. He wanted Shepard to understand why everybody was being cautious. Not everybody had an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of a Reaper. Too many people had seen too many horrific things, and lost too many friends and family, to forgive and forget so easily.

"I guess not," Shepard said reluctantly. "Maybe if I'd stayed, helped right some of the wrongs, people might have been more understanding. Perhaps things would have worked out differently. But I believed I was doing the best thing at the time. I hope history doesn't judge me too harshly for it."

"Shepard, you saved the galaxy. Nobody is going to judge you for anything."

"True. Hmm… did you give me a good burial?"

"Full military honours," Hackett nodded to the disembodied voice.

"And Anderson?"

"The same."

"Good. He deserved more than death on this blood-soaked tomb. He should have been knighted. SPECTREd. Given post-humous medals from every damn race on the Citadel."

"You cared a lot about him, did you?"

"Did he ever tell you the story of how we first met?"

"I assumed it was when you were assigned to the _Normandy_."

"Nope. It was before I'd even enlisted. Wanna hear the story?"

"I'd love to," Hackett said honestly. A story would help take his mind of his aching feet. Just how much further was this place?

"I don't know if you know, but Anderson had a thing for skimmers. Classic ones in particular." Hackett nodded. He'd known that Anderson enjoyed collecting skimmers – the slang name for small personal low-flight transport vehicles that had become widespread after the use of petroleum-based land vehicles had become outlawed for the damage they did to the environment. "Well, he was driving one of his skimmers around Chicago one day, he was on leave at the time. Anyway, he parked his skimmer outside a shop that sold fancy suits, and I was close enough to see that he'd left the passenger door unlocked. And, well, I was always up for an easy mark, so… well, I sorta took it."

"You committed grand theft auto against _Captain Anderson_?" Hackett asked, astonished that anybody would be so brazen.

"Well, I was able to justify it pretty easily at the time. It wasn't breaking and entering… merely entering. And I didn't have to _damage_ the skim to hack its ignition sequence. Plus, I didn't hurt anyone to get it, and a man who could afford a vintage 2105 Aston Martin SC-5.5 probably had more than one other skimmer in reserve. I figured it was a victimless crime, and a quick way to make some serious credits.

"I didn't count on Anderson being so quick of the mark. He called the cops, and because I'd neglected to disable to the tracker, they were able to trace me pretty quick. Of course, I was young and an idiot, and I wasn't about to give up my prize so quickly. I took three police skimmers on a high-speed chase through Chicago. Lasted almost an hour, but they finally managed to hit me with one of their power neutralisers. I ran out of juice and had to make an emergency landing. Nearly broke my damn neck."

"None of this was on your criminal record when you enlisted," Hackett pointed out.

"Yeah." Shepard's synthetic voice was sheepish. "This is it. The command relay."

Though the change in topic had not been lost on Hackett, he let it slide. In front of them was a door, which had been nothing more than a seamless part of the Crucible before the geth approached it. Now it was slowly sliding open, revealing darkness within. But the darkness didn't last; small round lights suspended along the walls lit the way, and the geth continued, not faltering for even a moment. Hackett felt the air cool, a chill breeze blowing across his skin.

"To conserve power, the Citadel and Crucible have been maintaining a standard temperature of fifteen degrees Celsius," Shepard explained. "High enough for the trees to survive and the Keepers to go about their business. It will take a while for the whole station to warm up to a more comfortable temperature."

"How did you know I was cold?"

"Internal sensors detected a .1degree fluctuation in your skin's temperature."

"Ahh."

"Over there," Shepard said, and a light came on a short distance away, illuminating a long terminal on which there were flashing lights. The geth seemed to know what they were doing. They stopped the mobile platform on which Shepard's body lay, then opened up the front of the console and began pulling wires out. Every so often they'd stick one of the wires into a port that was just about visible on the side of Shepard's neck, where a human carotid artery would be located.

"Should they be doing that?" Hackett asked. There were a lot of wires spilling out over the ground, like luminous discarded spaghetti.

"Yes, I've told them how to make the necessary hardware modifications."

"Don't you need to make modifications, too?"

"Already done." There was no mistaking the muted smugness in Shepard's voice. "The advantage of being an AI; an incredible aptitude for multi-tasking. Even a single Reaper had more processing power than the rest of the galaxy's computers combined. That's what makes them so efficient. And so deadly."

"How long will the modifications take?"

"They're just about done. Admiral, this transfer might cause the power conduits in this room to burn out. You might want to step back, towards the door."

Deciding it was best to trust Shepard's judgement, Hackett took a few steps towards the door, placing his back against a plain outside wall. The geth finished connecting wires to Shepard's new body, and stood back as if surveying their handiwork. Their bodies whistled and crackled as they communicated with each other, or with Shepard, and then they filed out, leaving Hackett alone with the inert body.

"Shepard, if this doesn't work, what will happen to your consciousness?" he asked.

"Stuck in the Reaper forever, I guess."

"In that case… good luck."

The lights in the room began to dim, leaving only the exposed wires as a source of light. They filled the room with an eerie, throbbing glow, but other than that there were no signs that anything was happening. There was no audible build-up of power, no hum of electricity… just the throbbing of the lights.

Without warning, a panel blew outwards from the console, narrowly avoiding the still body's head. Hackett held his breath; the panel had blown with enough force to make it a decapitating blow. Standing _very_ still seemed like a very good idea.

Several of the illuminated wires erupted in a shower of sparks, and others began to grow dim, their throbbing colours dying away even as sparks bloomed around them. The air began to heat up; an environmental control malfunction, Hackett suspected. Hopefully it hadn't affected anywhere beyond this room. Otherwise the Citadel was going to feel _very_ uncomfortable.

Much faster than it had started, the display of throbbing and exploding lights stopped. The wires were dark, absent of light and colour, some of them smoking as if fried by too much power. The overhead lights came back on, and Hackett took a few tentative steps towards the geth-created body. It appeared unscathed, spared the frying of the power cables… at least on the outside.

"Shepard?" Hackett said. He was just a couple of feet away from the bed, now, and he could see no signs of life from the body. "Shepard? Did it work?"

The construct's eyes opened, glowing an eerie orange colour, and Hackett instinctively jumped backwards, his hands going to his pistol. Just as he was in the process of drawing it, the body sat up on the bed and reached to its neck, pulling out the wires that had given it life. The synthetic equivalent of a being cutting its own umbilical cord.

It didn't look to Hackett immediately. Its amber-eyed gaze went to its own hands, which it held out in front of it, pronating and supinating as it examined its digits, and how easily the hands closed in to fists. Then it stood up, transferring its weight to legs that held strong, and lifted its hands into the air as if addressing some God above.

"It's aliiiiiive!" Shepard cackled. Then he lowered his hands and looked at Hackett. "Sorry. Always wanted to say that. It would have been better with a few flashes of lightning, but needs must, I suppose."

"Shepard?" Hackett holstered his gun and stepped forward, slowly coming closer to the synthetic body. Other than the fact that it was made of synthetic-organic muscle fibre grafted onto a metal body, it looked remarkably human. Remarkably like Shepard. "It worked?"

"Perfectly. With a capital P." Shepard bent his knees a few times and then lifted his legs up in turn. "Yes, yes, it works! This is so awesome. You don't know what it feels like to finally have legs again! I can't wait for my synthetic skin to be ready. Man, I'm going to touch _everything_."

Very little could render Hackett speechless, but the sight of the galaxy's saviour in a geth-constructed body did just that. For twenty years, humanity had mourned Shepard as its greatest hero. To have him here, now, living (in a manner) and with his mind intact despite all he'd been through… this was as great a victory as the defeat of the Reapers.

When he finally recovered his wits, he stepped forward and offered his hand. "Would you do me the honour of allowing me to be the first person to shake the hand of the man who saved the galaxy?"

"The honour, Admiral, is all mine," Shepard said, stepping forward to accept his proffered hand.

"Call me Steven," Hackett said, and Shepard nodded his hairless head. "So, what now?"

"First I'd like to look up some old friends," Shepard said. He rubbed his chin; such a human gesture that Hackett couldn't help but smile. "They should hear from me directly that I've survived. I won't want them to hear about it in the media."

"I can help with that," he offered.

"Do you think you could get the _Normandy, _too? I know from reading the extranet that she survived. I'd love to walk through her again." There was a genuine eagerness in Shepard's amber eyes, and Hackett knew how he felt. _Normandy_ was a remarkable ship, and she'd been the Commander's home for years.

"I'm sure that can be arranged. You understand, though, that as soon as we leave this room, there are going to be questions. Not just from HQ, and the Citadel Alliance, but from the media and the public… things are going to get crazy."

"I know."

"Then before we leave, and you become the thing everybody talks about for the next five years, there's one last thing I want to know."

"Yes?"

"What happened with Anderson? After you'd been caught stealing his skimmer, I mean." He couldn't stand a story that was left on a cliffhanger.

"Ah. Well. I hadn't realised that Anderson was in one of those cop cars. He stepped out just as they were clapping me in irons. He just looked at me for a long time, with those dark, intelligent eyes of his. I thought I was done for, that I'd be put in detention until a judge could sentence me to life. But when he finally spoke, he said, 'Son, you evaded capture for over an hour. If you fly a ship half as well as you fly a skimmer, and if you have half as much courage as you do tenacity, a man like you could go far in the military. Now, I could press charges. You'll be sentenced, and put away behind bars until you've a chin full of whiskers and half of them grey. But that would be a waste of a life. So I'm going to give you a second chance. You can keep jacking skimmers, but sooner or later you're going to get caught, and the next guy whose ride you steal won't be as forgiving as me. Continuing down the path you're on is _also_ a waste of a life. If, however, you'd like to make something of yourself, to put your skills to real use, and to be challenged on a daily basis, then you could do a lot worse than signing on for the Alliance's pilot training program.' And then he asked the cops to uncuff me, and he left.

"Two days later, I signed on. Anderson was the first person who ever had belief in me. He saw something in me that I didn't even see in myself. He wasn't just my superior, wasn't just my mentor… he was like a father to me. The only one I've ever known. And I can honestly say that he was a greater man than I. The galaxy is the poorer for his absence."

"Thank you, Shepard, for sharing that with me," Hackett said. He'd known that Anderson and Shepard were close, that Shepard was the captain's protégé, but he hadn't known just how close they were.

Shepard nodded. "I'd like to visit whatever monument you've put up for him. Pay my respects."

"Now?"

"No, not just yet." Shepard smiled. "I still have work to do."


	7. Old Friends

Steven's Sacrifice

_Chapter 7_

_Old Friends_

"What's it like being a synthetic?" Hackett asked, as he and Shepard strolled through the Viking's recreation lounge. Ever since the Citadel had re-opened four days ago, it had been impossible to keep out the flood of people wanting to visit it. A team had been brought in from Earth to man the traffic control tower and ensure there were no accidents as waves of ships arrived and departed. Even the sight of the Reaper, clinging to part of the Crucible, wasn't enough to deter their onslaught.

"It's a fate I would not wish on my worst enemy," Shepard admitted. A frown played across his newly-skinned face. Hackett had to admit, the geth had done a good job with the synthetic skin. Now, there was none of the metal of Shepard's body showing, and he was clad in civilian clothing, a plain blue shirt and trousers, for the sake of decency. He looked as real and alive as he ever had, and the only unnatural thing about him now was his eyes; they were still orange. It had taken a couple of days for Hackett to get used to that change.

"Oh?"

"I know it probably sounds harsh, and belittles the existence of all synthetics, but I have something they don't; first-hand experience of being a biological life form. What I have now is barely life at all. Don't get me wrong, it's not all bad; I'm moving, thinking, emotively feeling, and my new body gives me an approximation of senses. In many ways I'm superior. What you perceive to be my eyes are actually highly accurate scanners capable to detecting a wide range of frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum. My aural sensors are capable of picking up sounds well below and above the normal human range. My skin is sensitive enough to feel the gentlest of breezes, yet my synthetic muscles have four times as many fibres as biological muscle, and I could bend steel girders with my bare hands.

"But there are many things I miss. Sleeping, dreaming, eating, drinking, the tingly feeling you get when you sneeze, the ability to know what something smells like without merely getting an overview of its chemical composition… there are thousands of things humans, and biological life-forms in general, take for granted. That I took for granted. Being a synthetic is not life, or death, but a sort of… limbo."

"In which case, I have something which might help you feel a little more connected to life," Hackett said.

He turned Shepard around, and pointed out of the nearest window. There, hanging just off the _Viking'_s port side, was the _Normandy_, tiny by comparison but beautifully sleek as she reflected the light of Sol.

Shepard whistled appreciatively. "Now there's something I never thought I'd see again! The first time I saw her, I fell in love. Not in the same way that Joker has weird feelings for inanimate objects and sentient AIs, but in a way that I just knew we belonged together. Ever since I joined the military, I haven't considered Earth my home. I went where my COs sent me, and that was enough. But the _Normandy_… she's the home I never had and always wanted." Shepard turned to him. "Who could make it?"

Hackett smiled, enjoying this small act of secrecy. "Tell you what, why don't we go over there and find out?"

"Yeah. Yeah… I think we should. God, I wish I still had lungs. And a heart .And adrenal glands. I think this is one of those moments that would have made me feel alive. Y'know?"

"Yes, I do. Now, follow me, and I'll take you to the docking port where the _Normandy'_s been asked to pull up."

Hackett led Shepard out of the lounge and along the corridors of his oversized ship. Some few crewmembers saw them pass, and stared in open-mouthed shock. Not many people had seen Shepard, even though the whole crew knew that he was aboard, and that was just the way Shepard wanted it.

"You seem to be moving a little easier, these past couple of days," the young man observed as they walked side by side. "Don't look so surprised, Steven. I'm an AI, remember? I notice things more easily than organics do. Especially the little things. How long have your joints been aching you?"

"A few years. It's not all that bad."

"You shouldn't try to kid a kidder," Shepard grinned. Then his face became more serious. "That's another of the things I miss; pain. I don't feel it, just as I don't feel hunger, or tiredness. But pain's as much a part of life as hunger, and tiredness, and all the good stuff. Pain is how you know you're alive. Once you stop feeling pain, you're dead. Or synthetic."

"That's a very… unique way of looking at it."

"I have a very unique view. How many synthetics can say they were once organic? Or vice-versa?"

"It sounds like twenty years as a Reaper AI has given you a more philosophical point of view."

"Twenty years is a long time to be alone in space, pondering the nature of your own existence."

"I suppose it is."

For Hackett, the twenty years of peace had felt like a lifetime. How much longer could it have felt for Shepard, alone out there, with no family or friends, in an unfamiliar part of the universe? There were so many questions he wanted to ask; had Shepard felt afraid? Had there been any indecision about the correct course of action in those other galaxies? What was dark space like? How did the species in the other galaxies compare to humanity? How did they react when Shepard destroyed the vanguard Reapers?

As much as he wanted to ask the questions, he knew he never would. They obviously weren't happy memories for Shepard, and it wasn't fair to ask the man to relive twenty years of loneliness, not after everything he'd already been through.

"Wow," Shepard said, as the _Normandy's_ outer airlock door loomed into view. "Just as I remembered it. I must have approached and entered this door a hundred times or more, and in my head, I always said goodbye to her when I left, and hello when I arrived. My own weird little ritual. The very last time I left here, though, I didn't get chance to say goodbye. Everything was chaos, and time was of the essence. I ran out of this door and never looked back. Now, I wish I had. Even for a split second."

"After you," Hackett said, indicating that Shepard should board first, despite the fact that protocol dictated Admirals go first.

"Thank you, my friend," Shepard smiled. The door opened upon approach, swishing back quietly. "You disabled the airlock scanners and decon?" Shepard asked, when he was able to approach the inner door without being scanned.

"Vega told me how much you hated standing around waiting for decontamination," Hackett nodded. "I thought you wouldn't appreciate the wait today, so I had EDI temporarily take them offline."

"They're probably moot anyway. Now that I'm not longer an organic life-form, I can't carry biological contaminants."

"Perhaps another added benefit of being synthetic," Hackett suggested. "You'll never get sick or spread disease."

Shepard rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Hmm, true. And my synthetic body can also withstand a lack of atmosphere, and higher pressures and temperatures than a biological life-form can withstand. I suppose I never really thought of it like that. Thank you, Steven, for giving me a new perspective."

"My pleasure, Shepard. Should we continue?"

They took a right turn at the airlock, after Shepard stuck his head into the cockpit and expressed his sadness over seeing it empty, but any sadness was quickly forgotten as they stepped into the CIC. Despite his synthetic body, Shepard was like a kid in a candystore. He grinned over every familiar workstation, recounted short bits of anecdotes relating to humourous crew actions, and gawked in wide-eyed amazement as memories came flooding back as he walked through the familiar surroundings. When he reached the XO's position, just left of the main galaxy map, a sad smile played across his face.

"I lost a lot of friends to the Reapers. Good friends. Ash was the first, but not the last. Mordin, Thane, Legion… but I think the one that cut me most was Pressly. If Anderson was like the dad I never had, then Pressly was the granddad I never had. He was always looking out for me, making sure I had fresh coffee in the morning because he knew I was grumpy unless I got my coffee. He was always ready with a reassuring word and a piece of sage advice. And I felt safe with him as my XO. He was my safety net. I knew that if I screwed up, he'd be able to put me back on track. Sometimes, when I was working for Cerberus, I'd open my mouth and turn to ask Pressly for his advice before I remembered he was gone. I love this ship. I really do. But she'll never be the same as her first incarnation. Better in many ways, yes, but… well… it's hard to explain."

"They were more innocent times," Hackett finished for him. "Back then, humanity had its first SPECTRE, and we thought we could change the galaxy for the better. All we had to worry about was Saren and his tame geth. We thought we were climbing a mountain at the time, but in fact it was simply a gentle hill. It's only now, after we've climbed the whole damn mountain range, that we can look back and see that small hill, and remember how proud we were to have ascended it."

"Very eloquent. You should put that in your autobiography."

"Hah! As if anyone would want to read the ramblings of an old man like me."

"I would," Shepard said, his expression completely serious for once. "I mean it. Everybody thinks I'm a hero. And maybe I was. But the galaxy was full of heroes, and I suspect it still is. You're one of many. Without men like you, and Anderson, who came before, it would have been impossible for me to get where I am today. Plus," Shepard said, with a mischievous smile, "I haven't forgotten your orders to that irritating little bureaucrat to not pursue me whilst I was working for Cerberus. Your reluctance to allow others to 'bring me to justice' as they claimed, allowed me to save our colonists from the Collectors."

"Ahh, you heard about that, did you?"

"Liara was kind enough to pass along military correspondence she intercepted, after she gained control of the Shadow Broker's assets. And I never got the chance to thank you for that. Knowing that even though you didn't condone my actions, you still believed in my motives, gave me the strength to keep going."

"It was the least I could do, Shepard," Hackett said. After all, Shepard had died whilst protecting humanity. It wasn't his fault that Cerberus had brought him back to life, and the incidents in the colonies _did_ need investigating. In Hackett's heart, he knew that Shepard hadn't truly gone over to the covert organisation. He always knew that, one day, Shepard would come back. Loyalty was in his nature.

"Heh, listen to us, standing here reminiscing whilst everyone's probably dying to see me, pardon the expression," Shepard said. "Let's get to the Observation Lounge already."

Hackett offered no arguments as Shepard led the way through the silent ship. When the pair reached the lounge, Shepard hesitated for only a brief moment before opening the door. It slid back to reveal a room full of people as physically different from each other as people could be, yet united by one single fact; Shepard had earned their trust, their loyalty and their friendship. Knowing this was an important moment, Hackett followed Shepard into the room, but stood in the background, allowing Shepard this time with his closest friends.

They all looked shocked, even though they'd been told in advance that Shepard was alive. Perhaps they hadn't expected him to look like this, to so closely resemble the man he had been in life. Perhaps they thought he'd be a scarred and twisted shell of his former self, something more akin to the monstrous husks. Each and every one of them wore an expression of awe, mixed in with perhaps just a little suspicion. All except Tali, of course; her mask made it hard to judge her expression.

Garrus was the first to step forward, towering above Shepard by almost a foot. There was little expression on his rigid facial carapace, but in his eyes was a combination of hope and disbelief.

"Shepard? It… it's really you! I can't believe it. After all this time."

"It's good to see you, Garrus," Shepard said. "Admiral Hackett tells me you're playing at teaching new dogs old tricks. I hope you give 'em hell."

"Heh, something like that." Garrus' small eyes gave Shepard the once-over. "So… that's a synthetic body?"

"Yep, have a poke, if you like."

And Garrus did indeed tap Shepard's shoulder with one of his long claws.

"Damn. Synthetics have really progressed these days."

"Is it true?" Tali asked, stepping forward. "Did the geth really make this body for you, Shepard?"

"Yep. Great, huh? And congratulations, Tali. I knew one day you'd grow up to out-rank me," Shepard grinned. "I don't have to salute you now, do I?"

"It is **I** who should be saluting **you**, Shepard," replied Tali with genuine sincerity in her accented voice. "You gave my people back our home, and then saved it from eventually being destroyed by the Reapers. The quarian people owe you a great debt."

"Well all owe you, Shepard," said Wrex, stepping forward to join those who'd known Shepard the longest. "My second kid's named after you. First one named after Mordin. Yeah, little Shepard's a chip off the old block, alright. She knows how to put her older brother in his place."

"You named your _daughter_ after me?"

"Sure, why not? It's not like Shepard is a particularly masculine name. I bet there's women out there with the name too." Wrex thumped Shepard's shoulder. It was a blow that would have sent anybody but another krogan stumbling, but Shepard's body remained in place. "Huh, looks like you've gained a bit of mass, Shepard! We'll have to go thresher-hunting together some time."

"Thanks, but I think my days of slaughtering the fauna of Tuchanka are over."

"I'm sorry to hear that, battle-master," Grunt said. He, too, stepped forward and gave Shepard a hearty thump; the standard krogan greeting, when a head-butt wouldn't suffice. "I was looking forward to fighting by your side once more. There's not much left to fight now that the Reapers are gone, and the rachni are singing their bloody songs, and the geth are helping the quarians rebuild. No proper way to blow off steam, unless you go fighting a thresher. And it's only sporting to do it on foot, of course."

"I say that sounds like a loco idea," said James Vega. He was wearing his off-duty N7 uniform, and he saluted Shepard properly as he stepped forward. He'd always been a big man, and time hadn't changed that. With his olive skin and mass of tattoos which had only increased in number since the Reaper's defeat, he loomed even without his armour. Hackett knew, though, that he was no longer a match for his former CO. A synthetic body just didn't take punishment like an organic one.

"Vega," Shepard said with a happy smile. "Glad they finally let you into N7. Before I died, I told them they'd be batshit insane not to accept you."

"Speaking of batshit insane," said Jack, stepping forward with her head fully shaved once more, covered in more tattoos even than Vega, "you're a fucking _Reaper_, Shepard. What the hell?!"

"That's hardly the proper way to greet the galaxy's saviour, Jack," Miranda said. She stepped forward and embraced Shepard in a light hug.

"Speak for yourself, cheerleader. It's the proper way to greet someone who did something this fucked up but didn't invite me along for the ride."

"You wouldn't have liked this ride, Jack, trust me," Shepard replied.

Jack merely offered him a suggestive smile, a lift of one arched eyebrow. "Oh, I don't know. I bet you're good for it even after twenty years."

"Jeez, Jack, give the guy some room to breathe. You're gonna traumatise him," said Joker, helped through the crowd by his AI lover.

"Jeff, since Shepard now has a synthetic body, he does not require oxygen to sustain his life," EDI corrected. Joker merely rolled his eyes.

"I expected to see you in the cockpit, Joker," Shepard admitted, as he pulled the pilot forward into a hearty—but carefully executed—man-hug.

"Are you kidding? I wouldn't miss this for the world! Besides, it's not like I have anything to do except twiddle my thumbs whilst the _Normandy's_ docked with the _Viking_."

"That is not a euphemism," EDI informed everyone. "He really does twiddle his thumbs when he becomes bored."

"I see you haven't lost your… uniqueness, EDI," said Shepard. "It's good to see you still have your body, and I hope bipedal life has been treating you well these past two decades."

"Thank you, Shepard. And might I say, I am looking forward to speaking with you further and hearing your thoughts regarding sentient life."

"Err, yeah. Sure. We can do that." Shepard stood on his tiptoes and quickly scanned the crowd. "Anybody I haven't greeted yet?"

"Just one person," said Garrus, stepping aside to reveal Dr Chakwas. The now-old woman smiled, and it lit up her age-lined face, bringing a new light into her eyes.

"You just keep on defying the odds, don't you, Shepard?"

"Karin, it is so good to see you," Shepard said. He stepped forward and pulled the frail woman into a hug that was somewhat warmer than the one he'd offered Joker, though no less delicate.

"Hmm, no doubt. But I'm left with the impression that I wasn't who you were hoping for." Ahh, she was still as canny as ever, Hackett thought with a smile for himself.

"Ahh, think nothing of it, Karin." He let go of her and stepped back, taking in the sight of all of his friends. "How much, and how little, you've all changed. Admiral Hackett has been filling in some of the gaps for me, but I want to hear from you all, first-hand, what you've been up to since we last saw each other. I want to know everything. Every tiny little detail, even if you think it's unimportant. Because I can assure you; it's important to me. Feel free to talk at once; I can process it!"

Before anyone could speak, however, the door opened once more. Turning, Hackett felt his breath catch in his throat. Liara T'Soni's large blue eyes were fixed solely on Shepard, as if the rest of the room didn't even exist. As she took one step forward, everybody else backed away from Shepard, in an effort to give them as much privacy as possible.

"I'm sorry I'm late," Liara said, her voice barely a whisper.

"Liara. I… I thought you might not come," Shepard said, taking a step towards her.

"I wasn't going to," she admitted. "I was… afraid. Of what I might find. That I might come here and meet a stranger. Or worse, that I would come here and find the man I loved. Tell me, Shepard… which are you?"

"To be honest, I think I'm a bit of both."

"You always were a contradiction."

Shepard stepped forward again and lifted his arm, raising his hand towards her face. Liara quickly stepped back, her eyes widening ever so slightly.

"I… I need time, Shepard. To come to terms with this. I thought I'd lost you forever. I grieved for twenty years. And now, to have you back, so familiar yet so different… I need time."

"I understand. And I'll be right here when you're ready. I'm not going anywhere, Liara. Not now, not ever again. For as long as you want me, I'll stay right where I am."

Liara turned and left, leaving a very sombre-looking Shepard behind. The mood quickly went from jubilation to despondency, and nobody seemed inclined to speak first. At last, though, Karin came to the rescue. She placed one wrinkled hand on Shepard's arm and gave him one of those compassionate looks she was so good at.

"It's been an emotional day, Alex," she said, her voice pitched to be soothing. "Why don't we let you get settled into your quarters aboard the _Normandy_, and re-familiarise yourself with the ship. Perhaps tomorrow we can each have some time alone with you, to talk personally."

"Yeah. That sounds like a good idea. Thanks, Karin. And thank you, all of you, for coming here today. I know it probably wasn't easy to drop everything and come running to see me, and I know that not everybody has been able to come, so far. I look forward to speaking to you all in much more depth in the coming days."

Hackett watched as the crew filed out, some of them heading back to the _Viking_ to take shuttles back to their homes on Earth, some heading to their old quarters aboard the _Normandy_. When the last of them, Joker and EDI, had gone, he nodded to Shepard.

"Like she said, she needs time. But give her a chance, and I think she'll come around," he said.

Shepard responded with a wan smile. "She just found out that the man she loved and thought was dead, is actually still alive. And not just alive, but now a synthetic life-form. A synthetic life-form she will never be able to share her consciousness with, as we did so many times in the past, because we're just too different. I'm not sure she'll 'come around.' And I'm not sure it's fair for me to expect her to. She could find somebody else. Somebody organic. She could be happy."

"Giver her time," Hackett reiterated. There was nothing he could say to make Shepard feel better, and he suspected Shepard didn't _want_ to feel better. so, instead, he said, "Would you like me to show you up to your old quarters."

"Yeah, okay. How's the aquarium?"

"Empty."

"Figured." Shepard blinked his amber eyes, and lay a hand on Hackett's shoulder. "Thank you, Steven, for arranging all of this. I appreciate everything you've done for me."

"And I appreciate everything you've done for me." He smiled. "Come on, I think there may still be a bottle of brandy stashed away under your bed. I know you can't drink, but I could sure use something to warm my bones right about now."

Shepard nodded, and followed Hackett from the room. "Any word on Kasumi? Jacob? Zaeed? Any of the others?"

"I haven't been able to get hold of Kasumi," he replied. "I suspect she's 'conducting business' somewhere. If I know Kasumi, she's probably trying to steal Miranda's moon."

"Miranda has a _moon_?"

"Long story. As for Jacob, he can't leave his wife with five kids and a newborn baby. Zaeed's doing merc work out in the Terminus systems, and Samara is on her way but has been delayed by some injustice or other. Alenko's still on a top-secret SPECTRE mission, and I'm still awaiting word from Sam Traynor and Engineer Adams. Don't worry, Shepard, you'll see them all again."

"I hope so. It's very important to me to see my old friends as soon as possible. I want to make sure they're okay. That they're happy. That my sacrifice wasn't for nothing."

"I can tell you now, Shepard, that your sacrifice _wasn't_ for nothing. And I believe you made the best decision possible about the Reapers, given your circumstances and prior information."

"I hope so, Steven," Shepard said, but he didn't sound convinced. "I truly hope so."


	8. Immortals

Steven's Sacrifice

_Chapter 8_

_Immortals_

Never in his whole life had Steven Hackett known six months to pass so quickly. Normally, Shepard-mania was a once-yearly even that lasted two or three days around the anniversary of his death, but as soon as word became public that Commander Shepard was still alive, the media floodgates opened. Every news reporter in the galaxy wanted to interview Shepard, though he appointed Emily Wong as his official correspondent and refused to be interviewed by anyone else. The result was that Emily was then inundated with interview requests, which Hackett thought was rather crafty of Shepard.

But it wasn't just interviews. Every world that had sentient, space-faring life on it had a Shepard Memorial in its capital city. Some of the memorials were simple, tasteful statues showing Shepard's likeness, but on the asari homeworld of Thessia there was an entire square kilometre garden dedicated to him with an elegant fountain in the middle, and on Tuchanka the krogans had carved a mural into one of their hillsides, a massive scene set in stone which showed Shepard valiantly riding atop Kalros, the Mother of all Threshers. Hackett knew Shepard hadn't actually _ridden_ Kalros, but the stone carving drew in the tourists and helped to boost Tuchanka's economy, as well as renewing appreciation for the otherwise reviled thresher maws which plagued certain planets. In thanks for Kalros' help in defeating a Reaper, it was now illegal to kill threshers, though if anyone was willing to attempt to sedate them, it was legal to resettle them on new worlds.

All of the planets with Shepard memorials wanted Shepard to come along and see theirs, which usually involved a festival being thrown, and a tour of any worlds that had been occupied by Reapers – which, in the case of the Turians, also included several moons. The Alliance very kindly offered Shepard the use of the _Normandy—_not that they could have stopped EDI from taking it, after she downloaded all of her algorithms out of the _Viking_ and into the _Normandy's_ main computer—as well as a full escort of honour, which amounted to two Alliance dreadnoughts and ten frigates. From what Hackett had heard, every planet Shepard visited resulted in a couple more ships being added to the escort. Now, six months after he'd set out, there was a whole damned armada of assorted ships approaching Earth from the Charon Relay.

The _Viking_ had not been a part of the escort. It was instead ordered to remain behind in close proximity to the Citadel, in case the Reaper started behaving suspiciously. Hackett didn't mind not being part of the grand tour of the galaxy, because it all sounded very political and very tiring, but he suspected his crew were fed up of staring for six months at a Reaper that did nothing but erect a barrier if inquisitive ships or science crews came too close to it. An automated defence, Hackett suspected, to keep people out. Shepard was being true to his word; he was keeping the people away from the husks. They didn't need that horrific reminder of what the Reaper _truly_ was.

Six months of inaction, however, had given Hackett plenty of time to think about things. Sometimes he went out to the Citadel and sat outside the Reaper's barrier, just watching it, contemplating it, and he got the feeling that Shepard was watching him back from somewhere within, despite the fact that his bipedal synthetic body was millions of lightyears away. And, as he sat there, left alone by the remaining geth, positioning himself apart from the curious science teams, he'd started to get ideas. Ideas which could potentially change the order of the galaxy. The order of life itself. Ideas which would help both him, and Shepard, and everybody else for years and years to come.

Standing outside the airlock, Hackett checked the time on his omni-tool. One of the bridge crew had told him that the Normandy would be docking momentarily, but that had been ten minutes ago. His legs were aching from standing in one place for so long, but he didn't want to pace in case one of his crew saw him. He wouldn't be able to convincingly explain why he was walking aimlessly up and down. Not without incriminating himself with regards to his increasingly painful arthritis.

Finally, the airlock opened, and Shepard stepped out of the _Normandy_. He looked… the same as he had when he'd set off on his tour. Which was to say, good. Liara was by his side. Her arm was linked through his, but there was a sad cast about her face, as if she was still grieving for a long-lost friend. Behind Shepard, EDI was helping Joker along. Hackett wasn't thrilled that his pilot and his own computer's AI had been co-opted by Shepard, but it wasn't as if the _Viking_ needed Joker's expertise whilst it sat inert in space, and the ship's non-sentient VI had been able to handle every function whilst EDI was away. It was good to have them both back, though. The _Viking_ was a quieter place without them.

"Steven, it's good to see you again," Shepard said, stepping forward with a smile on his face. He shook Hackett's hand, then turned to the other three. "Would you guys mind if the Admiral and I talked alone for a while? We've got six months of stuff to catch up on."

"I will go and have lunch in the mess hall," Liara agreed quietly.

"Want us to show you the way?" Joker offered. "It's easy to get turned around on the _Viking_."

"Thank you, I would appreciate that."

As the three left for the mess, Shepard gestured for Hackett to walk with him in the opposite direction, and thankfully slowed his pace so that Hackett didn't have to stroll too quickly.

"How was the tour?" he asked, when it was obvious Shepard wasn't going to speak first.

"The highlight was that Tali let me see her face, on Rannoch. But otherwise… exhausting."

"I thought you didn't get tired?"

"I don't. But it was mentally taxing. So many people, and names, and places, and customs… my main processing power is still within the Reaper, and it always will be. But I managed."

"Liara seems to be taking things a little better," he pointed out.

Shepard sighed, and ran a hand through his faux buzz-cut hair. "I guess. Things are still a bit tense between us, though. We didn't get a lot of time to ourselves, on the tour. A couple of weeks ago, she finally agreed to share my bed again, and let me touch her, but we're taking things slow. I think she's still afraid that I'll leave, and hurt her again. Still, she _is_ asari. Six months to them is barely the blink of an eye. Maybe in six _years_ we'll be back to how we were."

Hackett nodded, but could offer no advice. How to win back the affection of your nearly hundred-year-old alien lover after you'd died and had your consciousness transferred into a synthetic body, was not something he felt qualified to comment on.

"We've had requests from science team to study the Reaper," he said, instead.

"I know. I heard them. And saw them. Always trying to poke and prod, as if I'm just some huge curiosity."

"To them, you are," Hackett pointed out.

Shepard closed his eyes for a moment and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I didn't expect this level of interest in me. Garrus wants me to come and be a guest lecturer at the turian military academy for a few months, help him teach young turians how to fire a gun without hurting themselves. One of the universities on Thessia wants me to be part of some sort of socio-philosophical think-tank and help with theoretical and practical studies into how life-forms develop, interact and evolve… both organically _and_ synthetically. The geth would like me to network with their entire collective to add some of the knowledge from my databanks and aid them in making another of those sphere thingies. Plus, the Alliance wants me to visit a few uninhabitable worlds as a 'special operative' to check out exactly what conditions are like and whether there's anything worth mining or terraforming. And I still haven't even had chance to think about adapting Reaper tech to aid us in the long-term."

"Actually, I've been hoping to talk to you about that," Hackett said. He felt his heart start to race in his chest; it was time to broach the subject he'd been contemplating for the past six months. He just hoped Shepard wouldn't immediately shoot him down.

"Oh?"

"I'd like to help you."

"Well, I suppose you could go lecture at the military academy. That would certainly free up a bit of my time."

Hackett shook his head. "That's not what I mean." He stopped, forcing Shepard to stop and face him. "I'm not getting any younger, Shepard. With every passing month I feel myself age, my body start to fail me. I know I don't have much time left. A few years at very best, and then a slow, bed-ridden death as my organs start to fail."

"Nonsense! You've got plenty of life left in you. You're still on your original hips!"

"That's kind of you to say," he smiled. "But I'm afraid there is a fine line between realism and optimism, and I fear you may be far across it. No, my friend, I know that my life is swiftly approaching its natural end. But what if it didn't _have_ to?"

"I don't follow," Shepard frowned.

"You have the technology to preserve consciousness, and even to transfer it into a synthetic body. One that doesn't feel pain, or need sleep. Let me join you. Two minds working together have to be better than one."

Shepard shook his head, his orange eyes conveying something which _almost_ looked like regret. "I'm sorry, Steven, but it doesn't work that way. There can only be one Reaper AI at any time. If you were to 'join me' using the same method I used to take control of the AI, then I would continue to exist in this synthetic body, but you would replace me entirely as the AI aboard the Reaper. And if that's not a fate that I would wish upon my worst enemy, I certainly wouldn't wish it upon you."

"Then perhaps the chambers which the Reapers used to dissolve—"

"Don't even think about that!" Shepard growled, his synthetic face morphing into a heavy scowl. "The liquefication process is in no way tied in to the Reaper's higher functions. The only thing it would achieve would be to kill you painfully, and then add your _memories_ to a collective bank. Your memories, Steven. Not your personality. Not your consciousness. You would be gone."

"I see." They weren't the answers he had been expecting. But he wasn't ready to give up hope. Not yet. There had to be a way to keep going, to help Shepard, and the galaxy, without having to live in pain anymore. "Then what about downloading my consciousness directly into a synthetic body?"

"Do you remember what happened the last time humanity tried that?"

Hackett nodded. Lydia Chase had been a young woman who'd suffered cerebral palsy all her life. In 2162, her parents agreed to allow scientists to try and transfer her consciousness out of her organic body and into a basic 'computer' that could eventually be given a robotic body. They'd hoped that it would allow Lydia to eventually live out a full life, free from the crippling pain which was slowly destroying her will to live. But the process had failed, badly, and Lydia had died. Not even the asari, with their advanced technology, were capable of prolonging organic consciousness in a synthetic body. Yes, it was possible to create synthetic intelligence from the ground up, as the quarians had done with the geth, but it wasn't possible to put an organic consciousness into a computer, no matter how advanced. The only species capable of doing that was the Reapers, and Shepard was the only one who had achieved such a feat.

"It only worked for me," Shepard said, "because I was able to filter my consciousness through the Reaper's bio-synthetic neural network. Which leads us back to the original problem of only being able to have one Reaper AI. Perhaps, one day, it will be possible to download organic minds into synthetic shells, but right now, it isn't. And I suspect it would take even my Reaper computer many years of research before coming up with a viable method."

As Shepard spoke, Hackett felt all of his hopes flying out the airlock. This had been his last hope. That perhaps, in a synthetic body, he could help take some of the burden from Shepard's shoulders. Help prepare the galaxy for its future, whatever that future may be. Now he saw his life for what it was; doomed to a slow, humiliating death as time caught up with him and made him its bitch. Well, if that was to be his fate, he wasn't going to allow it to happen. If he couldn't go out in a blaze of glory, which was looking increasingly unlikely given the current state of galactic peace, and if he couldn't continue inside a pain-free synthetic body, then he would meet death on his own battlefield. He would go out as a soldier, on his feet, staring death in the face; not as an old man lying crippled and wheezing on his deathbed.

"Alright, Shepard. Thank you for hearing me out," he said, and offered his hand to the man who had saved the galaxy. Shepard shook it.

"I only wish I could have given you a better answer, Steven."

"Don't worry about it. Just the musings of an old man."

"Do you wanna join me with the others, in the mess?"

"No, thanks. I have work of my own to do, now."

"Okay. Well, I'll see you later, then. Maybe we could meet up tomorrow and I'll tell you all about the monument on Tuchanka. It depicts me riding Kalros, you know."

Hackett nodded, and smiled. "I know. And I'd like that. I'll see you tomorrow, then. Lunch time? My quarters?"

"See you tomorrow," Shepard agreed, then he disappeared.

When he was finally alone, Hackett glanced around to get his bearings; he'd wandered aimlessly whilst talking to Shepard. Now that he knew where he was, he made his way to the closest elevator, and when it asked for his destination he said, "Deck three, medical bay."

o - o - o - o - o

A glass of brandy. Frank Sinatra crooning _My Way_ over the sound-system in his quarters. Medals out on display on the desk. Fourteen of them in total. More than anybody else in the Alliance Military. More than Anderson. More, even, than Shepard. Of course, he didn't have any memorials on alien planets, but the medals accredited to him for courage, and honour, and valour, and a whole bunch of other words that had meant a lot at the time but now didn't mean very much at all, were more than enough for Hackett.

He wore his dress uniform, all dark blue and gold trim, not a single crease in the material. His cap was perched atop his head at the correct angle, and the boots on his feet were so polished that he could see his own reflection. And, seeing himself in his shoes, he smiled down at himself, and lifted the brandy glass in toast.

"Here's to me," he said, and prepared to down the lot.

"Admiral!" EDI's synthetic voice, which had once been sultry but now sounded more grating, rang out through the comm panel, interrupting Old Blue Eyes most rudely. "I noticed you have accidentally mixed up your pain relief medication with a vial of diphosphorusnitrochloridebiperchlorate, and dropped it into your brandy. Were you to drink the alcohol, you would also ingest the dangerous compound and would likely fall into a coma before perishing."

"Huh. You don't say."

"For your own well-being, I recommend you dispose of the glass and its contents completely and start afresh with a new glass."

Hackett smiled. "Will you do me a favour, EDI?"

"You need not ask me for favours, Admiral. You are my commanding officer. I am duty-bound by the oath of allegiance I took after completing my military training to follow your orders or face a general court-martial."

"Hah, I suppose you are! Well then, here are my orders for you: Take care of Joker."

"I do not understand. I am already Jeff's formal care-assistant, but even if I was not, I would still participate in ensuring his continued wellbeing."

Hackett shook his head. _AI's!_ They just didn't understand. Even EDI, who had spent more than twenty years in the company of humans, who loved and was loved by a human, could not comprehend all of what it meant to _be_ human.

"Bottoms up," he said, and downed the contents of his glass in one. The brandy began to warm his throat and his stomach; a pleasant feeling.

"Admiral! You have just imbibed a fatally poisonous substance! I will alert the medical staff immediately."

He waved his hand and sat down in his desk chair. So far he felt nothing, but he knew it would take a few minutes for the compound to kick in. A few minutes of lucidity before his heart would start to slow, and his brain, slowly deprived of oxygen, would fall into a permanent sleep. The effects of this chemical had been likened to the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning, which used to happen on Earth, when fossil fuels were burnt. It was considered a peaceful, pain-free way to go.

"Forget the medical staff," he said. "There's no cure for this, and you know it. No, they can't help me now. If you want to help, then tell Shepard to get his ass over his ASAP. He wanted me to be there when he opened his eyes for the first time, and I'd like him to be here when mine close for the last. It's… poetic."

There was silence. EDI, he suspected, was probably raising all sorts of alarms throughout the ship. In the Admiral's quarters, Sinatra continued to croon.

_Regrets, I've had a few,_

_But then again, too few to mention._

_I did what I had to do,_

_And saw it through without exemption._

_I planned each charted course,_

_Each careful step along the byway,_

_And more, much more than this,_

_I did it my way._

Hackett's hands and feet began to feel heavy. His arms and legs were slowly beginning to feel like dead weights. And he was tired, very, _very_ tired. He felt his eyelids flicker as the details of the room—the fish swimming oblivious to the world outside their aquarium, the medals on the desk shining like stars, the bottle of amber-coloured brandy which begged to be drunk—began to blur into blocky colours, and he did not fight the feeling.

"Steven! Steven! Oh my god. Steven!"

He felt himself shaken, and opened his eyes to see two glowing amber orbs set into a worried face. He'd know that buzzcut anywhere.

"Ssssheparrrd," he drawled, his tongue heavy in his too-dry mouth.

"Jesus Christ, Steven, _why?"_

"Not gonna die infirm an' incontinent," he said, his words sounding slurred to his own ears. Was it just his imagination, or was time slowing? Was that why the room was getting darker?

"Damn it, you son of a bitch! You know I can't let you die like this. I _won't_ let you die like this. I won't lose another friend. Not now. Not after everything I've done."

He tried to say, _Don't worry about it Shepard, I'm ready to go. I've lived a long and full life. This may not be the blaze of glory all soldiers dream of, but you've shown me that a blaze of glory isn't always the best way to go. Please, learn to let go. Let __**me**__ go._

But his mouth didn't work. His tongue had given up and his jaw wouldn't open. As well, he could feel his eyelids starting to close again. And as they did, he also felt himself cradled, and then he was weightless, the chair beneath him replaced by what felt like arms. Trying to open his eyelids again, he saw only a blur as his surroundings zoomed past him. He heard the swishy sound of doors—he'd always loved that sound—and the cries of alarmed crew-members, which was a sound he _didn't_ like.

"Hang on, Steven. Just hang on a little longer."

There was such desperation in Shepard's voice that Hackett _did_ hang on. He focused on the sounds around him, of the buzzing of an engine that was fired up without going through its proper pre-flight sequence, to the sound of a hangar door opening, to the hum of an engine forced to fly at its full capacity before it was properly warmed up. And then he felt a shudder as all motion stopped. He was picked up again, and carried somewhere, and then set on the ground. His hands were forced around something, two objects that felt like poles.

"Steven, I need you to concentrate, now. I need you to focus. Focus on my voice. I want you to think about pushing everything away. All the pain and suffering, all the happiness and joy. Bring it all into your mind, and then push it out, force it out of your head."

Though he had no idea what Shepard was talking about, he obeyed, because Shepard's voice was all demanding and whiny, when all he wanted was peace. So he thought of the happy moments, of his marriage to his wife, of his first command, his first mission, his first medal, and then he thought of the sadness of losing Maria, of seeing comrades shot down in the line of duty, of all the ships that had been lost during Sovereign's attack, of the men, women and children who had been liquefied during the Reaper invasion of Earth.

And as he thought of these things, he felt something, an energy of sorts, thrumming through him, burning him, freezing him, rending fresh from bone. For one long, agonising, exquisite moment which lasted both a second and an eternity, he felt it all. Then, it ceased. There was nothing. No pain at all. He was dead.

Or he was synthetic.

o - o - o - o - o

The Reaper vessel hung in high orbit over the planet. Below, on the verdant surface, were life-forms. Bipedal. Sentient. Still six or seven hundred years away from space-flight. Presuming they didn't irradiate themselves before that point, they would one day be welcomed into the galactic community.

"Bioforms," said Shepard. He approached one of the Reaper's observation terminals, reading about the beings on the planet. "This is promising. We haven't welcomed a new bioform in many years."

"Too many years," Liara agreed.

Like Shepard, her body was an approximation of the one it had been thirty-six thousand years ago. Not all asari had approved of 'Biological Consciousness Transference,' or as they called it, _Lingering_, but Liara hadn't hesitated. As she approached the end years of her life, she had requested a synthetic body, as hundreds of men and women from every sentient race had done so before her. After all, it wasn't as if synthetic existence had to be forever. There was always the option of _self-termination._ And indeed, many of the Community _had_ self-terminated. Four or five thousand years was the standard life span for a synthform these days. After that, most tired of life, and choose to pass to _The Beyond._

What lay in _The Beyond_, nobody knew, because no-one had ever come back from it. The most common theory was that eternal rest was what lay in wait for those who self-terminated – the exact opposite of eternal life. Many suspected that self-termination, just like death, resulted in the progression from a physical life-form—whether it be a bioform, a synthform or a techno-organic—to a non-corporeal life-form. _Non-Corporeality_ was but one of the many religions practised in the Community.

"Should we take samples?" Liara asked. "We can analyse their DNA structure and create synth bodies for any anthropologists who wish to come and study the primitive creatures."

"No," Hackett said, his thoughts transmitting directly to Liara but including Shepard in the discussion. "I've just received a flash from the Citadel Council. They want us to return to Sol immediately."

"Better do as they say," Shepard said with a wry tone. "You know how they hate it when we keep them waiting."

Hackett engaged his sub-light engines and set a course for the nearest Mass Relay. He made the seamless jump to FTL, which ended when he reached another relay. The relays out in this section of the galaxy were newer, having only been built by the Citadel Council some ten thousand years ago, and they were faster and more efficient than the old Primary Relays.

It took almost an hour to reach Charon, and when the Relay spat them out he turned his bulky ship-body and made for the Citadel. He was surprised, when he scanned ahead, to find a sizable fleet gathering there. Six Chrysalis vessels were orbiting the old Reaper station, their cuttlefish-style bodies reminiscent of the Reaper shape. The massive techno-organic sentient starships rarely congregated in such numbers, preferring instead to spread themselves throughout the galaxy, terraforming worlds which would never house life otherwise. As they felt Hackett approach, they sent thoughts of greetings to him, and he recognised them by name; Taline, T'lana, Ormia, Medine, Nilan and Polara. They had been asari matriarchs before they had bonded their minds to the techno-organic ships, and Nilan was the youngest of the group, barely three-thousand years _Lingering_.

The Chrysalis' weren't the only ships present, however. Two turian galaxy cruisers were in a holding pattern not far from Luna, their immense size dwarfing the fifty or so dreadnoughts and frigates which accompanied them. Just as Hackett was manoeuvring himself into position near the Citadel, the salarian flagship _Nimbus_ appeared from the relay behind, and when he moved into position he noticed three rachni transport ships loitering next to Venus. All of those ships, in addition to the synthform Community fleet that was present, as always, for peacekeeping duties in Sol, made for an impressive sight.

"Looks like we're having a party," Shepard said, observing one of the scanner screens.

Liara smiled, her purple eyes lighting up. "Remember when we once thought that death was the end of life? Back during the time of the Reapers, I never would have considered the possibility that synthform could become the second stage in the bioform life-cycle. How long ago that seems!"

"It _was_ long ago, dear," Shepard replied. "Thirty-seven thousand years ago, give or take a few months. Just think, in another few thousand years we'd be faced with another Reaper cycle, if we hadn't managed to overcome them."

"If _you_ hadn't managed to overcome them, you mean. And how you do like to remind us of that fact," Liara teased.

"If you two are finished," Hackett said, amused by the display of affection happening within the bowls of his vessel-body, "the Council are convening and have asked us all to join."

"Wow. Must be pretty important to get the Chrysalis' involved. I wonder where the other fourteen are," Shepard mused.

"It's not important," Liara said. "Let's see what the Council have to say. I'm establishing the neural uplink to the Council Chambers."

The scene shifted. Hackett found a human-sized representation of himself floating in mid air. Around him, others floated; Shepard and Liara represented by their bodies, the bioform captains of the turian and salarian vessels appearing as ghostly facsimiles, the powerful Chrysalis minds present as swirling, multi-hued energy clouds. And none of them had to wait long. Within seconds, the Council appeared, walking in from an open doorway and taking their seats.

The asari councillor came first; Mira, a bioform matriarch well into her eight-hundredth year. Kotan followed her, a turian techno-organic. Implants beneath his skin flashed as he scanned the room with his eyes. The salarian who came next was a synthform, his synthetic body an accurate approximation of who he'd been when he was a bioform. The rest of the councillors trailing in behind were equally diverse; bioform hanar, rachni and krogan, synthform volus, elcor and of course geth, techno-organic quarian, human and drell. There were many newer life-forms in the galactic community, of course, but none had been around for long enough to warrant a seat on the prestigious Citadel Council.

"Thank you all for convening so swiftly," the asari councillor said. "Six hours ago, one of our dark-space observation buoys picked up several FTL signals approaching its position. Just before we lost communication with it, it transmitted that the FTL signals had dropped to sub-light and fired weapons. Since then we have lost two more buoys."

"It would appear," said the turian, "that your fears have finally come true, Shepard, albeit later than your initial projections had indicated. Our galaxy is under threat from the one or more species of another galaxy."

"Perhaps they are simply explorers," Liara said, innocent hope in her voice. It still amazed Hackett that she could maintain that innocence after all this time. He himself was fairly jaded, though he'd been quite the skeptic even when he'd been a bioform.

"Explorers don't open fire on observation buoys," the krogan pointed out. "Not without trying to first communicate." He banged his fist on the table. "The Krogan Union requests a vote. We want immediate military action. It's time to declare a State of War."

"As you are aware," the asari told her fellow councillors, as well as those observing, "a State of War has only been declared twice in the past thirty-thousand years, and requires a majority vote from the council before it can be put into effect. To that end, it is up to each of you to vote on the matter."

"The Turian Hierarchy votes in favour of declaring a State of War," said the turian councillor immediately.

"The Drell Confederacy seconds that motion."

"As does the Human Alliance."

"The rachni would prefer to listen to the songs of these newcomers and judge their intent for ourselves," the rachni spoke up.

"Even if they wish us no harm," said the volus representative, "I still believe our best course of action is to maintain a defensive front. To do that we need to declare War, therefore I put forward my vote to that effect."

The bio-luminescing hanar waved two of its tentacles around before speaking. "This one does not believe a State of War would be beneficial to its people. It believes more can be gained through open discourse than by defensive posturing."

"The quarians stand ready to defend our homes from these invaders," the mask-less quarian said.

"The geth have no desire for war," said the geth councillor. "However, it seems war has a desire for us. We would rather have weapons and not need them, than need weapons and not have them. We must prepare our forces immediately."

"Reluctantly, I must agree with the geth," said the huge elcor. "With regret, we may avoid defeat by striking now."

"And my vote, and sentiment, echoes that of the geth," said Mira. "The majority agree that we are now in a State of War." A moment of heavy silence spread throughout the room, as the seriousness and weight of the situation sunk in to all present. Then Mira turned to survey the visitors to this meeting. "We will send the SPECTRES to assess their strength and numbers. From this moment henceforth, all star systems are to be placed on high alert. Hackett, we will need to maintain a Community force within Sol, to protect the Citadel. The Human Alliance fleet will protect Earth."

"What about us?" asked Medine, eldest of the Chrysalis present.

"We need you and your sister-ships to travel to planets which harbour non-space-faring life," the salarian instructed. "It will be your task to protect the child-races of the galaxy. To ensure that if the battle does not go in our favour, those species have a chance to make it into space and one day avenge us."

"We will do as you ask," Medine said, and she and the other five Chrysalis disappeared from the room.

Kotan looked up at the representatives from the turian and salarian vessels. "Return to your home systems. Prepare your fleets. Spread the word to other systems of what is happening. If there are space-faring species which cannot defend themselves against a threat this large, instruct them to prepare as best they can and ensure their systems are not left unprotected.

"And me, councillors?" Shepard asked, once all of the other visitors had gone. He stepped forward, confident, calm, so very reminiscent of how he'd first addressed the council in the wake of Saren's attack on Eden Prime.

"We're sending you to the front lines, Shepard," said the asari.

"Good," he grinned. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Go now. See what you can find out. We'll be relying on your reports to organise our defences."

Liara broke the link, and Hackett found himself back fully inside his own ship body. He sensed Liara's unease, and Shepard's excitement, and understood how they both felt.

"You're going to need a ship to get to the front lines, Shepard," he pointed out.

"Good point. You volunteering for the job?"

"Sure. Why not? The Community can function without me if necessary."

"I'm coming, too," Liara said, the stubborn look in her purple glowing eyes perfectly matching the adamant tone of her voice.

"I wouldn't have it any other way, my love," Shepard said, and he wound an arm around her waist. "Well, Steven, what are you waiting for? Full steam ahead to the front line!"

"Patience, Shepard," Hackett snorted. Or would have snorted, if he'd had a body with which to snort. "I'd like to see _you_ try to turn a body that's 2 kilometres long without hitting another ship or the moon."

"This is going to be great," Shepard said, ignoring the chastising from his former superior office as he tightened his grip on the woman he loved. "It will be just like old times. Just wait and see."

* * *

_Author's Note: Thank you very much for reading. If you have questions about anything, please don't hesitate to ask. PM is fine if you don't want to leave a review. Hope you enjoyed this story… because there's no refunds if you didn't. ;)_


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